15 days adrift and still alive
Indonesian swept to sea, rescued from raft
By Vijay Joshi
The Associated Press
KLANG, Malaysia - Lying prone on the bobbing wooden plank, Ari Afrizal looked left and saw the fiery red sun dipping into the watery horizon. Weakly, he turned his face the other way and saw a pearly white full moon rising in the east.
All around him, the sea looked as if it were sprinkled with chopped leaves of gold, shimmering in the sun's glow. Ari had never seen a more wondrous sight.
It was dusk on Dec. 26, and Ari was adrift in the Indian Ocean.
"I was not prepared to die," the 21-year-old carpenter said.
And, against all odds, he didn't.
No safety in the sand
That morning, when the ground began to shake, Ari had been on a scaffolding, hammering nails, part of a crew building a beach home in Aceh Jaya town, about 150 miles from Banda Aceh. Frightened, the crew moved away from the house and squatted in the sand.
"Then the waves started coming," Ari said.
Ari felt as if he were caught in a giant washing machine. Tossed 1,500 feet inland, he banged against a mango tree and grabbed a branch.
"I saw my friends also hanging on to trees. I thought the world was coming to an end," he said. "I kept praying hard to Allah for my life."
As the tsunami receded, it pulled him under and sucked him out to sea. He swam and floated for an hour before his first stroke of luck: A wooden plank about 5 feet long drifted by. He clambered aboard.
"My throat was burning. The sun was hot," Ari said. "I had cuts all over my body. The salt water was stinging."
Several bodies floated past. Coconuts were drifting by, caught in the mass of debris swept out to sea by the tsunami.
Ari used his teeth and a piece of wood to split open a coconut, which yielded tender white flesh and sweet milky water.
That night, he barely slept, afraid he would fall off the plank. He found solace in nature's beauty, watching the simultaneous sunset and moonrise over the water.
The next day, a leaking, listing fishing boat drifted by. Ari swam to it and found no one on board.
As he drifted, he thought of his parents, his two elder brothers, a younger brother and a sister. He knew the giant waves were too powerful to have spared their home, only a mile from the shore. His girlfriend's house was not too far either, he said, the brown eyes misting slightly.
"I love her very much," he said. "I miss her."
He still doesn't know whether they survived, or if they are among the tragedy's 150,000 dead.
He was adrift for days in a busy shipping lane near Sumatra, where ships carrying cargo from Europe, India, Africa and the Middle East steam toward Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand. Many ships passed by Ari's small boat, barely noticeable in the vast carpet of water. He was sure one would notice him.
"But after five days," he said, "I began to lose hope."
By then, the boat was listing badly, the leak worsening. The sun was harsh and it burned his skin.
He'd been drifting for seven days when he spotted a large, unmanned raft with a hut on it. Abandoning the sinking fishing boat, he swam to the raft and found a gallon bottle of water to slake his thirst. Coconuts were still plentiful in the sea.
Around him, six shark fins pierced the gentle water.
"The sea belongs to them," Ari said. "I was not afraid because I did not do them any harm."
'Tolong! Tolong!'
On the 15th day, Ari awoke to the sight of the bow of a container ship looming over him.
It was close, too close to miss him, he thought. He pulled his shirt off and waved it. He stuck his fingers in his mouth and whistled. He shouted in Malay "Tolong! Tolong!" - Help! Help!
The Al Yamamah, a container ship heading from Oman to Malaysia, slowed and sounded the klaxon three times: Poom! Poom! Poom!
"When I heard that I knew I was saved," Ari said.
John Kennedy, the New Zealander who captains the Al Yamamah, did not expect to find anyone alive on the raft.
"To our surprise, a frail-looking man emerged," Kennedy told reporters.
Fed by the crew, Ari showered and got a bunk all to himself. A day later he was in Malaysia, resting in a hospital in Klang.
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