10 years ago today my parents. wife. and I were cruising in Phuket, Thailand when the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami rolled in and killed over 200,000 people. In the midst of completing a lifelong dream to circumnavigate the globe on a sailboat, we came face to face with unfathomable destruction and a global tragedy. I dont often speak about my tsunami experience because I dont know how to describe it without cheapening the memory of a day that cost so many people everything. But today is a day for remembering, so here goes: We spent Christmas anchored in a deep, sheltered inlet called Nai Harn Bay. While preparing to move the boat a few miles to the shallow anchorage of Chalong Bay we discovered that our head (toilet for you landlubbers) wasnt working properly. Dad and I systematically dismantled the boats interior to reach the plumbing and after hours of unearthing rubber hoses from the bilge and unclamping things that are better left clamped, we discovered the problem: a tiny orange fish the size of a quarter. That poor little fish had been sucked into the hand pump mechanism and was clogging everything up. Although it was a simple problem, cleaning up the mess forced us to stay an extra day in Nai Harn Bay. The following morning (Dec 26, 2004) we got up at late, raised anchor, and motored towards Chalong Bay. As we left the mouth of the inlet we powered over an unusual wave, prompting Dad to say Look at that standing wave! That is really weird (thanks to the water depth, the tsunami waves passed under us without building to massive surge or into breaking waves). 10 minutes later we rounded a peninsula and turned towards Chalong but stopped when we noticed a bizarre line in the water. On one side of the line was a sea of thick, brown mud and on the other side was crystal blue. The line extended as far as we could see and was so unexplainable and creepy that we decided to return to Nai Harn Bay. We turned around to see an armada of yachts stream out of Nai Harn at full throttle. The VHF radio erupted with confusion and speculation about a tsunami. The anchorage had been hit with three massive surges of water that whipped all 90+ boats in circles on their anchor rhodes with terrifying power. Amazingly, no cruisers were killed and no boats were lost at Nai Harn. The scene onshore was a completely different story….buildings reduced to bare concrete slabs, cars crushed and overturned, fishing boats in trees…chaos. The tsunami sucked debris from the shore out to the deep water where all the cruisers circled. No one knew what was going on or wanted to be near land in case of aftershocks and more tsunamis. We circled for six hours, listening to the BBC radio. A friend on another boat called his brother in England and relayed news over the VHF to the fleet of circling boats. Eventually the fleet made its way back into Nai Harn and dropped anchor as deep as possible, with an eye on the depth gauge and a hand on the engine starter in case of more trouble. In the ensuing days, cruisers helped people on shore pick up the pieces of their lives as best they could. It turns out that underwater topography determines a lot about what a tsunami does when it hits land. A deep bay with a gradual slope translated the waves energy into a flooding swell, while a shallow bay forced the waves higher and higher until they broke. Nai Harn Bay is deep, so we were lucky. Chalong Bay is quite shallow and we would have been creamed by a wall of breaking water. I showed Sarah what Ive written so far and she said Youve written about the experience but you havent said anything about what you thought about it. Isnt that the point?. Im not sure what I think about it. 10 years later, I still dont know how to process the experience. Almost a quarter of a million people died in that tsunami and Im grateful my family was OK, yet the loss of life and cataclysmic damage seem overwhelming and arbitrary. People who lived near the water lost everything while their neighbors up the hill were untouched. We were anchored in a deep bay instead of a shallow bay because a fish died in our toilet pump. Its possible that one little fish saved our lives. Im grateful for my familys survival and at the same time feel guilty at the knowledge of the 300+ people who died in the next bay over from Nai Harn and the 12 people who died in Chalong Bay. Thousands of people died in the Phi Phi islands, which we had just left a few days previously. A lot has happened in 10 years. Ive had the opportunity to be married to the Most Awesomest Women Ever and have two Most Awesomest Kids…family has enriched my life beyond anything I could ever have predicted. Ive traveled, made art, grown friendships, experienced great happiness, and struggled with great loss. Ive been so blessed. When I remember the 2004 tsunami I see scenes of destruction as a backdrop to the question Why did that happen, God?. There are no satisfying answers. Im struck with the contrast between Dec 25th and Dec 26th. Christmas celebrates the birth of Jesus, the Light of the World. Dec 26, 2004 was a day of darkness. Over the past 10 years, Ive come to recognize Jesus as the light for dark places. There are no easy answers, but there is hope in the darkness. Today my prayers go out to all the families who lost everything 10 years ago. I ask that they would know healing, hope, and joy in the midst of pain. Much love to you, reader. Life is short. There is hope. You are loved by God. You matter. - Dave
Posted on: Fri, 26 Dec 2014 20:07:42 +0000
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