A extremist religious family that fled the United States over imagined religious persecution wound up lost at sea for months, and couldn’t have lasted had they actually gotten to their planned destination.

The Gastonguays from desert northern Arizona had limited nautical knowledge before they set sail from San Diego in May with their newborn infant and 3-year-old daughter.  Hannah Gastonguay said they decided to “take a leap of faith and see where God led us.”

The aimed at the tiny Island republic of Kiribati, halfway between Hawaii and Oz, because they “didn’t want to go anywhere too big.”  But they apparently didn’t have the sense to check the weather first, because they were beset by storms almost immediately.  For 91 days, the Gastonguays would not see dry land.

Eventually, they were picked up by a fishing vessel from (Socialist) Venezuela, whose captain said, “Do you know where you're at? You're in the middle of nowhere!”  The family transferred to a Japanese freighter where they stayed for three weeks until it docked in Chile.

There, the big, bad United States government put them up in a hotel and arranged to fly them back to the desert, where Hannah Gastonguay says they will “come up with a new plan”.

Hopefully, the plan will include reimbursing the people who came to their rescue and United States taxpayers who paid for their return.

By the way, should they have even gotten to Kiribati, it wouldn’t have gone well.  Kiribati is in its last days, because global warming is causing the seas to rise.  The government isn’t planning on the islands being there too much longer.