In what sounds very nearly like a cold open from one of Netflix‘s newer, edgier shows, a surfer was mysteriously picked up six kilometres off the coast of Wollongong by a container ship at 9am Friday morning, after having been at sea for 16 hours.
The 37-year-old Japanese tourist was spotted and rescued by the 300-metre-long MCS Damla, a container ship registered in Panama, after crew members spotted him and pulled him aboard.
The man was reportedly “unfazed” by the ordeal, surprising police, who reckoned things could have gone a lot worse for him:
“The crew were able to lower the gangway, he was able to paddle over and they basically just plucked him out of the water.“We couldn’t believe it. He’s out there on a surfboard, adrift, at nighttime. The risk would be hypothermia from exposure to the elements, and drowning, should he have become separated from the board.”
Also pretty surprising is the fact that he was out that far in the first place; as surf news website Swellnet reported, it’s very unlikely that the current could have pulled him out that far unless he was paddling in the wrong direction, and he should have easily been able to see the lights on the shore, allowing him to paddle back in.
This mystery might have stayed just that (a mystery) if it weren’t for a chance encounter by Swellnet’s Stu Nettle with the surfer himself, who is apparently named Toru.
Nettle had just finished surfing Sandon Point in Wollongong when he recognised Toru and his board next to a make-shift shelter beneath the point’s cliffs. Despite being shy at first, Toru explained that he was out there, essentially, because he wanted to get out amongst nature:
“The surf was very small, and I paddled out late. It was going to be a full moon that night. I stayed out to watch the moon rise and then the wind died off and it was still.“I much like being in nature, and it was very nice out there. I wanted to… feel it.“I could see the lights [from the land] and I watched the full moon and I relaxed. I wanted to see the sunrise while the moon was still in the sky.”
Toru reckons he wasn’t doing that bad and wasn’t even trying to be rescued when he swam towards the ship:
“I paddled near it because I liked the shape of it.“But then someone appeared on the rail and saw me. I was tired, a bit cold, but I was OK. It was… very embarrassing.”
Well fair enough, sometimes a man just has to go risk death to be out at sea by himself on his surfboard I guess. You can read the full article here, which waxes more lyrical than you would expect given the topic.
Source and photo: Swellnet.
