Report from Polish yacht Karolka anchored off Phuket 26 Dec 2004
At 9.15 on the Boxing Day morning – 26 December 2004 – a huge wave suddenly struck Phuket without any warning. No one knew what was happening and no one appreciated the seriousness of the situation and of the impending cataclysm.
Looking from the deck we became aware that something very strange was happening to other yachts. (We were amongst 70 or so yachts anchored on the Nai Harn bay, at the western end of Phuket). Suddenly all the yachts begun to swirl in a strange fashion, each in a different direction. We looked towards the beach: it was empty, with all the deckchairs and umbrellas floating in the water. Meanwhile a wild crowd of people was swarming on the breakwater, gaping at the scene.
As we looked out, our boat once again turned by 180 degrees and stood stern to the beach. We realized that something terrible was happening and that this was no ordinary surf. We saw some of the yacht weighing their anchors and hurriedly leaving the bay. Suddenly we spotted a huge mountain of water heading towards us from the sea. It was so big that for a while it obscured the view of all other yachts anchored further from the beach. We started our engine, realizing damn well that it would be virtually useless against such force. Nevertheless we wanted to get at least some steerageway and to compensate, however little, for the forces acting on the anchor cable.
The wave passed us relatively painlessly, but the depth jumped by 4 metres as the mountain of water majestically and slowly moved onto the beach and hit the breakwater with full force. People seeing the approaching water started running away in a panic. After a while the water begun to retreat, taking everything with it; the wave turned us around once more, with a huge force and the noted the depth dropped by 6 metres. We stood at the centre of a raging torrent, which to make the matters worse kept changing direction all the time. The first wave had already washed away all the beachfront restaurants and shops; the water around us looked like a giant rubbish dump. Waves kept entering the bay, one after another, but they were decidedly smaller; there was about a 20 minutes long lull; half of the yachts run away towards open sea, we all thought that that was all that was going to happen and the show was over. And it was then that the biggest wave arrived. When it hit us the depth reading jumped to 14 metres; when it retreated we had only 3 metres under the keel and a huge chasm opened between the beach and us. This last wave left people no chance – it took everything with it leaving the beach completely clean, with huge piles of debris beyond it. At that point I noticed a man struggling in water close to our yacht; he was near some rocks, fighting for life and desperately shouting for help. Luckily there was a catamaran even closer to him than us; its owner jumped into his dinghy in a matter of seconds and pulled the man out. The final wave was followed by a period of calm. No one knew what to do; the yachts kept weighing their anchors and departing to join several dozens other yachts drifting outside the bay. After an hour VHF radiobroadcasted the news that what we had experienced was an aftershock wave, caused by an earthquake in Indonesia. No one was able to advice us on radio what to do; after several minutes news broke out that an even bigger wave was is on its way, expected to arrive in about one hour’s time. The remaining yachts begun to leave the bay like rats escaping from a sinking ship. We also decided to weigh our anchor, since we stood worryingly close to the beach and were really scared of this next wave. We considered it anyway a miracle that our anchor held up so far! So we joined the other yachts and drifted for several hours a few miles off the beach. We realized by then that there was nowhere for us to go and sea alone seemed to provide us with a safe refuge. We felt like the crew of Noah’s Ark. The next wave never arrived and as the yachts begun their slow return to the bay we also decided to head back. The sight that faced us on our return defies description; it was a scene of sheer horror.
We do consider ourselves unbelievably lucky to have survived. People from yachts that stood in Phi Don witnessed a truly apocalyptic tragedy: the island practically vanished; the wave took with it everything; hundreds of people lost their lives; the yachts stood surrounded by floating corpses.
So now we strive to keep our spirits up, all crews are trying to organize themselves and find their feet in this new situation, particularly the yachts, like ourselves, planning to sail further on, towards the Red Sea and then on to the Mediterranean.
We received this email from the Polish yacht Karolka (translated
by Magda). They were anchored off Puket on Boxing day and it gives the
skipper's understated factual report of the events of that day.
Karolka is a 12m (40') steel yacht built over sixteen years in Wroclaw, SW
Poland, 500km from the sea!
Launched in 2000, they set off around the world in 2001.
Onboard at the time were:-
Father, Roman (engineer & builder)
Daughter, Barbara (Skipper)
Son in law, Jacek (everything else!)
Mother, Bogusia joined them from Baltimore through the Panama canal to Fiji.
Ian