Tourist lost at sea off Greek island ‘survived by eating sweets’
GREECE (BBC): A tourist survived for two days adrift at sea in a dinghy near Greece by snacking on boiled sweets, reports say. Kushila Stein, 45, from New Zealand, was rescued from the Aegean Sea, north of Crete, on Sunday.
During her 37-hour ordeal Ms Stein reportedly rationed a “handful of boiled lollies” and wrapped herself in plastic bags for warmth.
An experienced sailor, Ms Stein put a red bag on her head and used a mirror to attract attention, reports say. After an extensive search, the Greek Coast Guard found her 101km (55 nautical miles) north of Crete, Greece’s largest island. Her mother Wendy Stein told Stuff.co.nz her daughter’s training in sea survival “might have saved her life”. How did she get lost at sea?
Ms Stein was helping a British man, named in media reports only as Mike, take a yacht from southern Turkey to Athens.
During the trip, Ms Stein decided to “stretch her legs” by sailing a dinghy to the island of Folegandros on Friday, her mother said.
Kushila Stein in her rubber dinghy after being rescued by the Hellenic Coast Guard
When Ms Stein did not return to the yacht, the owner reported her disappearance to Greek authorities on Saturday morning.
A search and rescue operation involving six vessels, a helicopter and underwater drone was launched by the coast guard. While Ms Stein was at sea, she wrote her mother’s name and contact details on the side of the dinghy, fearing she might not survive.
But the coast guard picked her up on Sunday morning “half way between Crete and Folegandros”, her mother said.
Voyagers shed light on Solar System’s structure
US (GN): Data sent back by the two Voyager spacecraft have shed new light on the structure of the Solar System. Forty-two years after they were launched, the spacecraft are still going strong and exploring the outer reaches of our cosmic neighbourhood. By analysing data sent back by the probes, scientists have worked out the shape of the vast magnetic bubble that surrounds the Sun.
Researchers detail their findings in six separate studies published in the journal Nature Astronomy. “We had no good quantitative idea how big this bubble is that the Sun creates around itself with its solar wind - ionised plasma that’s speeding away from the Sun radially in all directions,” said Ed Stone, the longstanding project scientist for the missions.
“We certainly didn’t know that the spacecraft could live long enough to reach the edge and leave the bubble to enter interstellar space.”