Knowledge of how to read the sea is a rare gift. Patrick Oliver, one the last of the Claddagh fishermen, who once had a fleet of 200 boats in the bay, carries on the family tradition successfully catching lobster and crab. Patrick knows the local coastal waters like few others. When on Thursday morning August 13 2020, he heard that the two young women, Sara Feeney (23 ) and Ellen Glynn (17 ), who had set out from Furbo beach on their inflatable paddle boards the evening before, were still missing, he phoned his brother Dave who had been out all night on the Galway lifeboat searching.
The Olivers have a long association with the RNLI service. He then phoned Barry Heskin, the Galway RNLI duty co-ordinator, to check what was going on, and where the search was focused. The search, which was intense, involved three Coast Guard helicopters which swept the inner bay in rotation; along with the Galway and Aran lifeboats, and the Doolin Coast Guard, which throughout the night had covered a total a 200-square-mile sea area. The search had concentrated on the inner bay, east of Spiddal.
Patrick called his son Morgan and headed straight for their catamaran, the Johnny O, at Galway docks. Having analysed wind speed and direction of tidal movements, the Olivers set a course for the Aran Islands, beyond the main search area.
‘A possible sighting’
On Inis Oírr, Paddy Crowe, recently retired manager of the island co-op, Comhar Caomhán, turned on the radio, and heard that the two women were still missing. Living only a 100 yards from the shore and having worked previously at sea, he knew how bad the night had been (there had been thunder and lightning and heavy rain ), and thought it was unlikely that the anyone out on a paddle board for 16 yours in that weather could survive. He listened in to his VHF radio to hear how the search was going.
Just then his sister-in-law rang. She had been out walking around the back of the island near the lighthouse, and had seen something. She knew the women had not been found, but way out at sea, there was something: ‘too far away to make it out clearly…’.
Paddy Crowe rang Valentia Coast Guard and passed on the message, which became ‘a possible sighting’ and immediately relayed to all boats.
About four nautical miles east of the Aran Islands Patrick called:
‘Galway Coast Guard, this is the Johnny O, Johnny O. We heard there was possible sighting….is it towards Inis Oírr ? or is it nothing?…’
Galway confirmed the report. ‘Helicopter 117 is in the area, if you are there just give it a look over, that would be appreciated’.
‘Yeah. No problem we’re heading in that direction now.’
Search and Rescue helicopter 117 flew overhead and on between the two islands clearly seeing nothing. The Johnny O increased speed heading to where the possible sighting ‘of something’ was reported.
All Patrick’s instincts told him they were in the right locaction. Morgan was standing on some fishing gear, a few feet above the boat, looking intently ahead. Then he saw something that looked like a stick or a paddle waving about a mile ahead. “I see them!” he shouted. “I see them!”
‘In a nightmare’
Wearing nothing but bikinis and buoyancy aids Sara and Ellen set out from Furbo beach around 8pm the previous evening in picture postcard weather, intending on a short paddle while Sara’s mother Helen walked her dog Otis along the shore.
As they chatted and paddled away they did not realise that a steady off-shore breeze was pushing them further out into the bay. Ellen forgot her wet bag which would carry her mobile phone and keep it dry at sea. They looked back and could see the lights of cars on the Spiddal road, and ‘the bright lights of Padraicín’s pub’. Each time they tried to point north the boards swung around by 180 degrees. They saw a boat in the distance. They screamed at the top of their lungs and waved their paddles in the air. But it was too far away. They saw a second boat and screamed and shouted a second time. But it was no use. They clipped the two boards together with a buckle. Even though it was a warm, mid-summer evening, Ellen described it as ‘being in a nightmare, and just wanting to wake up’. Soon they were in complete darkness, the offshore breeze felt more like a 20-knot wind. Unbeknownst to them, a thunderstorm was building out at sea.
Watched the drama
At this stage, of course, Helen could no longer see them. She called her husband and Ellen’s parents, the Coast Guard, and the houses of friends in case they had come ashore. Gradually becoming ‘paralysed with anxiety’ a small group of parents and friends gathered at Furbo, and watched the drama out in the bay as beams from helicopters swept parts of the sea. They drove to piers and beaches further along the coast in case the women had come ashore somewhere else; and hopes were high when a flare shot into the air far out in the bay. Surely a flare meant they have been found? They checked with the Gardai, had they any news? but there was no news whatsoever. Social media was alive with appeals to help with the search for the two missing women. Dozens of fishing vessels, small boats and kayaks were now in the water.
‘A miserable night’
The two women had spent a terrifying, and miserable night. Air temperatures of around 18 degrees had fallen to 15 degrees. Even though the sea was ‘warm’ the estimates for survival at sea in normal clothing would be about 20 hours. The two women were not aware of this but they felt totally vunerable in their light swimming suits and life-jackets.
At one stage the lyrics from Taylor Swift’s ‘Exile’ gave Ellen an uncontrollable urge to sing out: ‘I think I’ve seen this film before/And I don’t like the ending…’ *
The weather deteriorated and the rain was so heavy that it hurt. The last sight of a helicopter in the distance was just before a lightening storm at around 4am. However a little miracle happened when they spotted a crab-pot floating marker. ** They managed to reach it, paddling furiously, and tied their boards to it. They were, exhausted and cold, trying to keep awake.
At dawn they looked around. They saw in the distance the lighthouse on the southern tip of Inis Oírr. They were at the mouth of Galway Bay. Behind them was the inhospitable north Clare coast, marked by the towering, sea-lashed Cliffs of Moher. Before them was the vast Atlantic, all 5,000km of it stretching to Newfoundland. They felt incredibly alone.
‘I think that’s a boat’
Sara remembered she was sitting up looking around, waiting for some ‘crazy moment of inspiration’ when she spotted the outline of a small vessel. She said nothing to her cousin at first, thinking her tired mind might be playing tricks, especially after so many false alarms the night before.
It came closer and closer. She told Ellen, hardly believing what she saw, ‘I think that’s a boat out there’.
With all the energy they could muster, they waved their paddles furiously, extending them as high as they reach.
It seemed as if the whole island of Ireland breathed a sigh of relief. Every news item, every social media, everyone beamed and smiled that the two young women were found alive and well.
For weeks afterwards the local postman delivered letters with no address other than: ‘To the Two Luckiest Girls in Galway.’ All were delivered.
NOTES: Several months later father and son fishermen Martin (61 ) and Tom Oliver (37 ), close relatives of Patrick and Morgan, died within 24 hours of each other after an accident on board their potting vessel on the north side of Galway Bay. Both had been involved in the search for the two paddleboarders.
* Musician Taylor Swift sent Ellen a package, with a three-page written letter, and a picture she had painted of a seascape with a calm sky.
** The pots belonged to Cill Éinne fisherman Bertie Donohue who was delighted that the floating marker helped save the young women. When he lifted his pots several days later ‘ there was a good catch of crab’.
Patrick and Morgan Oliver received an award from Galway mayor Mike Cubbard in October 2020. ‘Claddagh royalty’ was how the mayor described the two men.
Sources this week: Search and Rescue - True Stories of Irish Air-Sea Rescues and the Loss of R116, by Lorna Siggins, recently published by Merrion Press, on sale €16.95.
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