Two women who were retrieved by the Navy after they were stranded in a damaged sailboat with their two dogs for five months have, at long last, stepped foot on land. Yet, as questions arise about their story, the two admitted Monday they had a functioning rescue beacon on board they did not use. 
 
 Jennifer Appel and Tasha Fuiava were taken to the White Base Naval Facility in southern Japan on Monday after the two were picked up by the Navy on October 25, adrift some 900 miles off the coast of Japan. The friends left their homes in Hawaii on May 3 for what was supposed to be about a month-long sailing trip to Tahiti in Appel’s sailing boat, the Sea Nymph, but the two quickly ran into trouble from a storm that flooded their engine, damaged their mast and cut off their communication systems. 
 
 “The crew of the USS Ashland saved our lives,” Appel, 48, told press during a briefing on Monday, according to ABC News. “Had they not been able to locate us we would have been dead within 24 hours.” 
 
 Koji Ueda/AP 
 
 Appel, who is an experienced sailor, stocked up on a year’s worth of food for the trip in case of an emergency, living off a supply of pasta and oatmeal that was about 90 percent depleted by the time they were rescued. The two-woman crew sent out distress signals for 98 days but did not receive a response, and endured two separate attacks from groups of tiger sharks that rammed their boat. 
 
 Sarah Villegas/U.S. Navy 
 
 “When I saw the gray ship on the horizon, I was just shaking,” Fuiava told PEOPLE and other reporters during a conference call on Friday. “I was ready to cry. I was so happy. I knew we were going to live.” 
 
 Yet, a Coast Guard spokeswoman told the AP that the women had an EPIRB (Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon) on board, which could have been used to alert search and rescue services via satellite at any point during their five-month journey. During a conference call with the AP and PEOPLE on Friday, Appel did not include an EPIRB when asked what communication devices she had on board. 
 
 “We asked why during this course of time did they not activate the EPIRB. She had stated they never felt like they were truly in distress, like in a 24-hour period they were going to die,” Coast Guard spokeswoman Petty Officer 2nd Class Tara Molle said. 
 
 Jonathan Clay/U.S. Navy 
 
 Appel and Fuiava’s account has garnered much criticism from the boating community from the start. 
 
 “I think most cruising sailors found the story just really odd,” Linus Wilson—an associate professor of finance at the University of Louisiana, who took up sailing in 2010 and has since logged more than 10,000 nautical miles—tells PEOPLE. “My initial thought when I heard the story was that Jennifer was very irresponsible for not checking the weather reports.” 
 
 Appel says a Force 11 storm slammed into their boat within days of leaving Hawaii, but Wilson’s suspicions led him to research if any Force 11 storms—which can cause exceptionally high 30- to 50-foot waves and can dramatically reduce visibility—formed around Hawaii at the start of May. The NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) told him they have no record of a storm occurring at that time. PEOPLE followed up with the NOAA and confirmed this information. 
 
 Wilson says he is worried their story may scare away people who are interested in sailing. 
 
 “To have people afraid they’re going to be lost at sea, or that they’re going to be attacked by sharks, I think it’s a terrible picture for the sailboat cruising community,” he says. “Sailors who have been out on the water and have cruised long distances, their comments about the story are negative—there are so many holes in it that it just doesn’t make any sense.” ||||| Jennifer Appel, right, and Tasha Fuiava speak on the deck of the USS Ashland at White Beach Naval Facility in Okinawa, Japan Monday, Oct. 30, 2017. The U.S. Navy ship arrived at the American Navy base,... (Associated Press) 
 
 Jennifer Appel, right, and Tasha Fuiava speak on the deck of the USS Ashland at White Beach Naval Facility in Okinawa, Japan Monday, Oct. 30, 2017. The U.S. Navy ship arrived at the American Navy base, five days after it picked up the women and their two dogs from their storm-damaged sailboat, 900 miles... (Associated Press) 
 
 HONOLULU (AP) — Two Hawaii women who say they were lost at sea never activated their emergency beacon, the U.S. Coast Guard said, adding to a growing list of inconsistences that cast doubt on this harrowing tale of survival. 
 
 The women previously told The Associated Press that they had radios, satellite phones, GPS and other emergency gear, but they didn't mention the Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon (EPIRB). 
 
 A Coast Guard review of the incident and subsequent interviews with the survivors revealed that they had an EPIRB aboard the Sea Nymph, but never turned it on. 
 
 Jennifer Appel said in an interview Tuesday that in her experience the beacon should only be used when you are in imminent physical danger and going to die in the next 24 hours. 
 
 "Our hull was solid, we were floating, we had food, we had water, and we had limited maneuverable capacity," Appel said in an interview in Japan, where the U.S. Navy took them. "All those things did not say we are going to die. All that said it's going to take us a whole lot longer to get where we're going." 
 
 Previously, Appel and Tasha Fuiava had said they were close to giving up when the U.S. Navy rescued them last week, thousands of miles off course. 
 
 The EPIRB communicates with satellites and sends locations to authorities. It's activated when it's submerged in water or turned on manually. The alert signal sends a location to rescuers within minutes. 
 
 A retired Coast Guard officer who was responsible for search and rescue operations said that if the women used the emergency beacon, they would have been found. 
 
 "If the thing was operational and it was turned on, a signal should have been received very, very quickly that this vessel was in distress," Phillip R. Johnson said Monday in a telephone interview from Washington state. 
 
 Johnson described the device as sturdy and reliable, but added that old and weak batteries could cause a unit not to function. 
 
 Appel and Fuiava also said they had six forms of communication that all failed to work. 
 
 "There's something wrong there," Johnson said. "I've never heard of all that stuff going out at the same time." 
 
 The two women met in late 2016, and within a week of knowing each other decided to take the trip together. Fuiava had never sailed a day in her life. They planned to take 18 days to get to Tahiti, then travel the South Pacific and return to Hawaii in October. 
 
 They set off on May 3 and were rescued by the U.S. Navy last week, thousands of miles off course. 
 
 Key elements of the women's account are contradicted by authorities, and are not consistent with weather reports or basic geography of the Pacific Ocean. The discrepancies raised questions about whether Appel and her sailing companion, Tasha Fuiava, could have avoided disaster. 
 
 On their first day at sea, May 3, the two U.S. women described running into a fearsome storm that tossed their vessel with 60 mph (97 kph) winds and 30-foot (9-meter) seas for three days, but meteorologists say there was no severe weather anywhere along their route during that time. 
 
 After leaving "we got into a Force 11 storm, and it lasted for two nights and three days," Appel said of the storm they encountered off Oahu. In one of the first signs of trouble, she said she lost her cellphone overboard. 
 
 "We were empowered to know that we could withstand the forces of nature," Appel said. "The boat could withstand the forces of nature." 
 
 But the National Weather Service in Honolulu said no organized storm systems were in or near Hawaii on May 3 or in the days afterward. Archived NASA satellite images confirm there were no tropical storms around Hawaii that day. 
 
 The pair said they thought about turning back, but the islands of Maui and Lanai didn't have harbors deep enough to accommodate their sailboat. At 50 feet (15 meters) long, the vessel is relatively small, and both islands have harbors that would have accommodated them. Plus, the Big Island — the southernmost island in state — has several places to dock. 
 
 "I had no idea that we were going to be in this thing for 80 solid hours," Appel said of the storm of which there is no record. 
 
 Still, they pressed on. 
 
 Days later, after parts of their mast and rigging failed, they sailed up to another small island, still with a working motor, but decided against trying to land, believing the island was mostly uninhabited with no protected waters. 
 
 "It is uninhabited. They only have habitation on the northwest corner and their reef was too shallow for us to cross in order to get into the lagoon," Appel said. 
 
 But Christmas Island, part of the island nation of Kiribati, is home to more than 2,000 people and has a port that routinely welcomes huge commercial ships. 
 
 "We could probably nurse it down to the next major island in Kiribati," Appel said. Then we'll be able to stop there and seek safe haven and get up on the mast and fix it." 
 
 The island has at least two airfields, and women had flares aboard to alert people on land. Plus, its widest point spans about 30 miles (48 kilometers), a day's hike to safety from even the most remote area. 
 
 When asked if the small island would have been a good place to land and repair their sails, Appel said no. "Kiribati, um, one whole half of the island is called shipwreck beach for a reason." 
 
 Christmas Island has a place called Bay of Wrecks on its northeast side. 
 
 So, instead of stopping for help, they say they set a new destination about 1,000 miles (1,609 kilometers) away and a few hundred miles beyond their original target of Tahiti. They were headed to the Cook Islands. 
 
 "We really did think we could make it to the next spot," Appel said. 
 
 Then, they say, another storm killed their engine at the end of May. 
 
 The Coast Guard made radio contact with a vessel that identified itself as the Sea Nymph in June near Tahiti, and the captain said they were not in distress and expected to make land the next morning. 
 
 More than five months after they departed, they were picked up in the western Pacific about 900 miles (1,448 kilometers) southeast of Japan. The two women and their dogs were all in good health when picked up by the U.S. Navy. 
 
 ___ 
 
 AP writer Ken Moritsugu contributed to this report from Naha, Japan.
– The story of two women from Hawaii rescued after being lost at sea for five months is beginning to seem incredible—as in difficult to believe. After they were picked up by the USS Ashland 900 miles southeast of Japan last week, Jennifer Appel and Tasha Fuiava said they faced storms and shark attacks and that there were times when they "absolutely" thought they would die. They didn't mention that they failed to use their Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon, which would have immediately alerted rescuers to their location. A Coast Guard spokeswoman says the women claim they never used the emergency beacon because they never felt "truly in distress, like in a 24-hour period they were going to die." Multiple other inconsistencies in the account have surfaced, including some that conflict with the "basic geography of the Pacific Ocean," the AP reports. The women say they departed Hawaii bound for Tahiti on May 3 and ran into a fearsome Force 11 storm the same day that "lasted for two nights and three days," but the National Weather Service says there were no storm systems near Hawaii around that time. The women have said their mast and motor failed, along with multiple methods of communication, though the Coast Guard says it made radio contact with their sailboat, the Sea Nymph, near Tahiti in June and they said they weren't in distress. One long-distance sailor tells People that many sailors find the women's story odd, because "there are so many holes in it that it just doesn't make any sense." (The two women are now back on land.)