close to the sun storm in a teacup survival

There are also no dogs, prisons, lawyers, pavement, or soil-the land is mostly bits of broken coral. The closest significant land mass is Samoa, a twenty-eight-hour ferry ride away. The nearest atoll, equally tiny, is fifty-seven miles to the south, well beyond the range of visibility. From the bottom of the tiny boat, emerging slowly and unsteadily, rose an arm-a single human arm, skinny and sun-fried and waving for help. But then, as the big ship was approaching the dinghy, something startling happened. Anyway, it appeared empty, another bit of the ocean's mysterious flotsam.

If the San Nikunau had passed a quarter mile to either side, likely no one would have noticed it. There was no way it should've been in this part of the Pacific. The dinghy, fourteen feet long and low to the water, was designed for traveling on lakes or hugging a shoreline. The New Zealand–based San Nikunau was in open water, a couple of days out of Fiji, amid the vastness of the southern Pacific-an expanse the size of a dozen Saharas in which there are only scattered specks of land. It was late in the afternoon on November 24 of last year. As the ship came closer, the object revealed itself to be a small boat, an aluminum dinghy. The crewman alerted the navigator, and the 280-foot San Nikunau slightly altered course to avoid a collision.

A crewman on a commercial tuna-fishing boat was the first to spot it: something shiny and metallic in the water off the ship's bow.

Close to the sun storm in a teacup survival