‘I woke up in the water with no life jacket… the boat 100m ahead of me. I saw the boat sailing off and I thought it was all over.”
This was the stark realisation that hit South African surfer Brett Archibald, 50, as he watched the charter boat Naga Laut disappear into the night off Sumatra, Indonesia, having fallen overboard after passing out on its deck.
“I don’t remember falling overboard. We were in a bad crossing and the seas were really rough. I went to the deck to drink some water and realised I was really seasick,” said Archibald, formerly of Durban, in an interview with Surfing Life magazine after he was rescued by the crew of the Barrenjoey, an Australian yacht yesterday.
After going up on deck, Archibald vomited twice before blacking out and falling into the ocean. It was 3.15am local time.
“There were no islands anywhere, but I figured I had to remain calm. Once the boat realised I was gone they would turn around.”
The boat did not turn around, though. In fact, no one knew that Archibald had fallen overboard.
“The night was carnage. I had sharks swimming past me, I got stung by every jellyfish, and seagulls even tried to peck my eyes out,” said Archibald.
Eventually the situation became so dire that Archibald decided to “give up”.
“Screw this, I can’t carry on,” he recalls saying to himself while trying to swallow water so he would go under.
“But I couldn’t get my lungs to take in the water and I kept coming back up.”
Archibald said he then “pulled himself together” and kept on swimming.
“I treaded water all night. I saw a couple of islands and tried swimming to them, but the current was too hectic.”
Yesterday morning “I saw islands, but I couldn’t get to them”.
“I saw land five times, but I could never get close – the current pulled me away every time.”
After fighting the currents, and dehydration, without any flotsam to keep him afloat, he was spotted by the crew of the Barrenjoey, which had joined the search.
“I saw these masts and started swimming towards them. They weren’t coming straight for me, they were going to miss me by 200m. I couldn’t whistle, my mouth was so dry, so I just started hollering.”
Archibald was eventually spotted, 28 hours after he had fallen into the sea, by the captain of the Barrenjoey, John McGroder, who took him aboard.
McGroder said it was “a miracle” that Archibald had survived the hazardous water conditions.
“He was very emotional and dehydrated, but there was a doctor on board to check him. The water was very choppy with big swells because of the wind. It’s everyone’s worst nightmare. He is a very lucky guy,” he said.
McGroder said the warm water and Archibald’s surfing experience helped him survive.
“I tell you, I’d never been so happy to see a boat in my entire life, even if it was full of Aussies,” said Archibald. He was immediately given water while his nose, pecked raw by seagulls, was attended to.
Yesterday, the father of two, who now lives in Cape Town, was determined to continue his surf trip with his former school friends to Mentawai Island. This was their seventh surf trip together.
Speaking from the Naga Laut, Archibald’s childhood friend and cabin mate, Jean-Marc Tostee, who attended Westville Boys’ High with Archibald, said hearing his pal |was alive had broken the “hell” they had been through looking for him.
“We had been scouring the ocean trying to find him. When we heard he was alive we started crying,” he said.
Tostee posted immediately. “We Found Him! We Found him! and he’s Alive,” was the message spread to notify Archibald’s wife, friends and the public of his safe rescue.
His wife, Anita, spoke to him by satellite phone before he was returned to the Naga Laut to continue his trip.
Back in Westville, Archibald’s mother, Shirley, was overjoyed.
Her other son, Greg, had come into her room at 3am to tell her that Archibald had been found.
“The whole of Wednesday I prayed and my faith was strong, until last night. I just collapsed.”
“You don’t want to know how I felt. I was finished,” she said.
“It is an absolute miracle. He is a very strong person and has so much energy, but I don’t know how he survived.”
Shirley said she had jokingly told him before he had left to “stop these foolish things as he was a middle-aged man now”.
Tostee said they would return to Durban in 10 days.
“He (Archibald) phoned his wife and asked if it was okay if he could stay,” said Tostee. – Additional reporting by Barbara Maregele.