| ACCOUNT OF WHAT HAPPENED IN THAILAND |
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| DIDN'T LOSE ANYTHING - THE BOAT TIPPED AND SMASHED THE MAST INTO THE OCEAN FLOOR, BUT THE CREW HUNG ON AND WERE OK AND ALL OUR STUFF WAS OK, STASHED BELOW DECKS, EVEN MY COMPUTER, ETC.
WE HAD GONE DIVING ON ANOTHER BOAT WITH ABOUT 20 PEOPLE AND WERE ALL IN THE WATER WHEN THE CURRENT PULLED FRITZI AND JC AWAY (WITH A BUNCH OF FOLKS FROM ANOTHER BOAT) AND JC MANAGED TO GET ONTO ANOTHER BOAT, SCARED, BUT FRITZI WAS PULLED BY THE CURRENT THROUGH A CHANNEL BETWEEN 2 SMALL ISLANDS WHERE WE HAD BEEN SNORKELEING, AND WE HAD TO CIRCLE THE ISLAND TO PICK HER UP AT THE OTHER END (SOME OF OUR CREW HAD JUMPED INTO THE WATER AND STUCK BY HER). SHE WAS OK, BUT AS SOON AS SHE GOT IN THE BOAT, THE CURRENT SHIFTED VILOENTLY IN THE OTHER DIRECTION (AL MISSED THIS IN HIS ACCOUNT, BUT IT REALLYIMPRESSED ME AS WEIRD)... IT WAS APPARENTLY THE TSUNAMI PASSING WITH IT'S REVERSE CURRENT-THINGIE HAPPENING.
WE GOT WORD ON THE CELL PHONES OF CAPTAIN AND CREW ABOUT SOMETHING WHICH PROMPTED THE CAPTAIN TO SAY "THE TRIP IS CANCELED" WE ARE ABOUT TO GO INTO THE EMERALD CAVE, BUT FOUND OUT LATER THAT 20 OR MORE SOULS HAD JUST BEEN LOST THERE... WE MUDDLED AROUND A WHILE AFRAID TO GO TO SHORE FEARING ANOTHER, AND THE CAPTAIN GOT WORD HIS HOUSE HAD BEEN SMASHED. WE SAW A PIER WHICH WAS TRASHED AND HOUSES FORM A DISTANCE, AND COULD NOT APPROACH. WE FINALLY LANDED BEHIND THE ISLAND AND WALKED TO A SCHOOL LIKE A STRING OF REFUGGES UNTIL A FEW HOURS LATER A RELAY OF PICKUPS TOOK US TO THE FERRY WHERE WE OLD GET BACK TO KOH LANTA (YAI = LARGE) (WE LANDED ON NOI= SMALL) AND MADE IT BACK TO THE B3ACDH WE HAD LEFT IN THE MORNING, JUST AN HOUR BEFORE THE THING STRUCK, AND FOUND IT TRASHED. WE ALSO FOUND THAT OUR BOAT HAD LOST ITS MASTS, AND THE CAPTAIN CAME AND GOT US QUICKLY IN THE ZODIAC, FEARING ANOTHER TSUNAMI, AND HURRIED US OUT INTO SEEPER WATER WHERE WE SPENT THE NIGHT. THE NEXT DAY WE WENT ON TO ANOTHER ISLAND WHERE JC AND I CAUGHT THE TAXI TO KRABI AND GOT OUT TO BANGKOK AND THEN THE NEXT DAY TO SRI LANKA .
IF I HAD REALIZED HOW BAD IT WAS IN THAILAND I MAY HAVE STAYED. WANTED TO VISIT THE KRABI HOSPITAL WHERE SURVIVORS WERE STARTING TO BE BROUGHT IN, BUT I HAD TO CHOOSE BETWEEN GETTING A SEAT TO BKK THEN OR NOT AT ALL, SO CHOSE BANGKOK. WHILE ON THE BOAT HEARD THE PRESIDENT OF SRI LANKA CALL FOR INTERNATIONAL DOCTORS TO COME HELP, AND DECIDED THEN TO DO IT (THE POETRY READING EARLIER IN THE DAY MAY HAVE BEEN A FACTOR).
ANYWAY, WE'RE HERE NOW, AND COPING. HAVE A NICE HOTEL AND THAT MAKES IT BEARABLE. GIVING THANKS REGULARLY TO BE ALIVE.
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| Table of Contents |
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| INFORMATION FOR DONORS: |
For those interested in contributing to the relief effort in South Asia, especially in Sria Lanka which has been hardest-hit, I recommend the following organizations:
Airline Ambassadors International
Sarvodaya USA,
Send a check to:
Sarvodaya USA
5716 Manchester Avenue #3
Los Angeles, CA 90045
Lost Medicos Voladores
Our accountant of Sarvodaya, will wire funds to Sarvodaya
every few days. Your contribution will be tax-deductible in 2005. Either way, it is needed immediately.
And, we will make sure it is acknowledged.
Please send tax deductable donation
checks to: DreamCatchers
23852 Pacific Coast Hwy #766
Malibu, CA 90265, USA
Or to make a contribution with your
VISA or Mastercard,
contact Gary Rhine
at: PH (310) 457-1617
rhino@kifaru.com
Note: DreamCathchers has already raised $20,000 which is arriving in Sri
Lanka
this week with nurse Kima Douglas in the form of urgently needed
medications and cash. |
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Dr. Daniel Susott, MD, meeting with hospital directors in Batticaloa, a town on the east coast of Sri Lanka 8 hours from Colombo where thousands died in the tsunami
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| Photos of Account of What Happened in Thailand (click on each photo to enlarge picture) |
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| Scenes of devastation greeted us upon our evening return to the shore we had left at 8 AM, an hour before the tsunami had struck. The tour office was without walls, the computers washed into a heap in the back, everything destroyed. 2 of us had spent the night on shore in a bungalow now flooded, which could have been our watery tomb if we had overslept... |
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| Rescuing our friends who had been pulled by the current away from the boat as the tsunami passed |
This is the “Big A” sailing boat out of Phuket, Thailand, captained by an Austrian fellow named Horst – before it lost its masts in the tsunami |
The day before the tsunami – sight-seeing on the “Big A” yacht. There were 6 of us tourists signed up for a week's cruise among the islands of Southern Thailand where 5000 people died in the tsunami, half of them foreign tourists. |
The small dive boat where we had gone diving, leaving the shore an hour before the tsunami hit. |
Worried looks on the boat and the current sucks people away, including this man's wife. The young crewman is about to jump into the sea to rescue them... |
The young crewman jumps overboard to save the passengers caught in the current of what we later learned was the tsunami passing. We were out to sea between 2 islands. |
Coming around the island to rescue our friends caught in the current, pulling them through a channel between 2 small islands far from shore . |
A crewman looks anxiously out to see for the next killer wave – the captain of our diving boat had just gotten a call that his home had been smaked and it was not safe for us to land the boat since another wave might be on the way, from aftershocks of the 9.1 earthquake off the coast of Sumatra. The tsunami killed 150,000 or more people in the Indian ocean. |
Stranded – taking refuge in a school for hours while waiting for pickup trucks to take us to the ferry back to the island we had left hours before – only an hour before the tsunami devastated the coast we had left. |
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| Our first view of the shattered coastline – houses smashed, a pier broken in half by the killer wave. We did not land for hours fearing an aftershock and another tsunami. |
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| Captain Horst, the fearless Austrian owner of the “big A” yacht, hurries to collect his stranded passengers from the coast, fearing another tsunami and eager to get to deeper water. The boat is now without masts, having been pounded 7 times into the sand by the killer waves. Luckily the motor still worked and we could get to deeper water and eventually home. The captain and 2 crew had been on deck when the wave hit and managed to hang on for dear life and survived. |
Now without masts, the “Big A” limps into a peaceful bay where all the boats but one had been destroyed, and the reamining boat with it Danish crew ferried them to safety and evacuated us, the let us use their cell phone to call loved ones and tell them we were safe. |
Dr. Daniel Susott, looking happy to be alive, happy to have survived the tsunami the day before... We were still unaware, as was the world, of the scope of the devastation – over 150,000 killed and lives shattered forver. |
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| Captain Horst and hes crew “Bunny” and “Koy” on the way home after the tsunami. “I needed a new mast anyway, and lucky I've got insurance” said the captain. He seemed to take it all in stride, after more than 30 years sailing the Caribbean and the Andaman sea. I would definitely sail with him again – and you can too: his website is <http://www.biga-sailing.com/destinations.htm> - the best way to see the spectacular Andaman Sea. |
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