In the middle of the night, anchored in a very remote part of West Papua, Indonesia, behind a reef in a lagoon, Elliot suffered what we now know was a stroke.

It began a terrifying chain of events with no immediate help available and sparked what would become a 18 hour rescue mission by Basarnas (Badan SAR National Indonesia).

While this service is government funded and cannot accept any direct donations there are other ways we can help them and we are asking for anyone touched by our story, anyone grateful that Elliot is still around to be annoying, anyone who might find themselves cruising this beautiful region who could find themselves in a similarly unexpected emergency situation to help us raise some money for the team.

We can contribute to much needed future training programmes.

We can contribute additional drugs and the training for those drugs to be administered appropriately. (They were not, for example, carrying aspirin).

We can contribute directly to the team, to top up their fairly minimal pay. Once we were on board they treated us like family and whilst the medical facilities were limited the care and compassion shown to us was beautiful.

We would love your help. Elliot is not the first yachtie they have saved and he won't be the last. We are forever grateful for their action.

You can read a detailed account of the events that lead to the rescue on our Instagram account in a series of posts @nosharksnopirates

Any funds raised will be sent via a trusted contact in Sorong to the appropriate places. We are incredibly grateful for anything you can give. Even a fiver. Thank you.