By Sharon Salyer

Herald Writer

EVERETT – Two Honduran sailors marooned since January aboard the Marlin, a 160-foot cargo ship stranded at an Everett dock, are scheduled to fly home today.

Their $1,575 airline tickets were bought after individuals hearing of their plight made donations, extra offerings were collected at several area churches on Sunday and the Longshoreman’s Union in Everett, which had previously donated food and supplies, promised to pitch in.

“They’re very happy; you bet,” said the Rev. Everett Savage, port chaplain for the Lutheran Church who broke the news to the two sailors, Roberto Mejia, 45 and Juan Francisco Hernandez, 41, Sunday afternoon. “They were very grateful.”

Although only about half the full amount of the airline tickets had been raised on Sunday, “we’ll send them home,” Savage said.

“We don’t have enough but … we’ll make up the deficit one way or the other. There are times you have to act on a little faith.”

The men will fly out of Seattle-Tacoma International Airport this evening aboard flights that will take them to San Pedro Sula, Honduras, said Lila Smith, a union inspector with the International Transport Workers’ Federation who has helped provide supplies for the crewmen.

Although the men are happy to be going home, Savage said it is a bittersweet ending to the saga.

“These guys will get home, but they paid their own way to get from Honduras to Miami to get this job,” he said. “They’ve been without salary for two months or more.”

Smith will continue working on trying to get back pay for the two sailors, Savage said, “but we don’t know what will happen.

“With poor families, they really don’t have the resources to wait months,” he said.

The aging cargo ship has sat immobile at an Everett dock for five months, awash with a string of safety, immigration and financial problems. One sailor suffered a stroke and was shipped home to Guatemala in January.

Mejia and Hernandez initially were told they would be in Everett for a week while the owners assembled other sailors to replace the first crew. That was in January.

Meanwhile, Coast Guard officials are trying to trace who owns the ship. It may have changed hands four times since a Seattle company, Western Pioneer, sold it to Florida investors in 2001.

The Bolivian ship was supposed to complete its Seattle-Miami journey in September. But it was judged unseaworthy before it even got out of Puget Sound.

The ship’s temporary insurance has lapsed, Smith said.

Smith said the two men remaining aboard the Marlin were cold and very tired because there are only two of them to maintain the ship, and their sleep is often interrupted by the checks they have to make.

The Coast Guard is scheduled to board the ship this morning, Smith said, “and make sure everything is shut off and shut down.

“That’s one step in making sure that this vessel is as responsibly cared as possible, given the circumstances,” she added.

You can call Herald Writer Sharon Salyer at 425-339-3486

or send e-mail to salyer@heraldnet.com.