Weekend Argus (Saturday Edition)
Beating the odds against survival
In April 2013 Capetonian Brett Archibald fell off a boat during a storm at night in Indonesian waters, without anyone on board realising – 100km from the nearest land. Experts believed he should have died within 10 to 14 hours. But for 28-and-a-half hours
ISWIM, alternating my strokes: crawl, then breaststroke, crawl, breaststroke. Each time I put my head in the water, I’m terrified that the vision of the Virgin will disappear. Please be there, I think as I come up for breath. And as I surface, there she is. Magnificent. Mesmerising.
Equally, I fear the buoy will vanish, but I focus my gaze and can see it very clearly. What I’m seeing is entirely real. There is quite a distance to cover, and though I’m not conscious of the buoy getting closer I continue swimming. I have to reach it before dark. I swim for what I imagine to be an hour; the apparition stays ahead of me throughout. Sometimes she fades a little and the cloud threatens to dissipate, but I plead – “Please don’t go away. Please don’t evaporate” – and she returns.
With each breath I keep the red buoy in my sights. After my earlier dream-like state I’m now struck by my clarity of thought. It’s a relief after the dark period I’ve been through. If the Virgin has given me benediction, the buoy has become my talisman. Every now and again I hear the bell ringing.
The sea begins to calm. Although the swells remain colossal, waves no longer break around me. With each stroke, I feel myself being pulled up and over the upsurge and as I go down the other side, I seem to be going faster. I’m convinced I’m being helped along.
As I swim, I plot what to do when I reach the buoy. I’m going to climb up on to it, break into the beacon and use the Morse code I learnt as a Boy Scout to radio for help. Mad as the scheme seems, it does give me hope.
I think I’m getting closer, so I put my head down and put in a vigorous burst of freestyle. I swim as hard as I can. My lungs feel as weighty as granite and they ache; my arm muscles feel like an outstretched rope. As I come up to take a breath I notice that the buoy is now to my right.
It’s because you’re right-handed, I tell myself. Your right arm is dominant and it’s making you swim off course.
I have to swim more consciously, I decide. Breaststroke will allow me to keep the buoy in my sights, but the light is disappearing fast and I want to kick out one last burst of freestyle. I put my face in the water and swim as furiously as I can for about three or four minutes.
It feels like forever and after a while I can hear a tinny ringing in my ears. On my last breath I lift my head and look up. The buoy has disappeared. There’s nothing there.
I stop swimming. I tread water and turn a full 360 degrees. Again I go around and around, flopping about desperately as I look for the vision and the buoy.
“Oh please no. No. No! Where is it? Where is it?” I’m panicking, screaming as loud as I can. “Have you swum in a circle? Have you gone off course? It was there! It was there!”
In every direction, all I see is wide ocean and flat, very dark sky. Nothing beyond.
Stupefied, I start babbling. It’s almost incoherent.
“What are you doing? What are you doing to me, God?”
It’s a fast descent into hysteria. “Another red herring?”
My brain is screaming, blood feels about to explode from my veins. “Now what have I got, God? Nothing! You’ve given me nothing. Nothing!” Still I cannot cry. Why? Exhaustion drenches every sinew in my body. I stretch myself out, and because the waves are no longer breaking over my head I am able to lie on my back for the first time. My arms and legs sink beside me, but I take as much air as I can into my lungs and am still able to keep my torso afloat. I have to use my arms to scull beneath me, but agonising fatigue makes it almost impossible. I move upright again to avoid submerging completely.
“Is this your f***ing plan, God?” Foul language will probably seal my fate. “You make me swim so that I’m so f***ing exhausted that I f***ing drown? Is this a f***ing test? Well, I can’t f***ing well give you any more! I’ve done my best.”
I look down at my body. It’s white. Almost luminous.
“Bob, Hilary, Emily,” I announce. “I’m done. I can’t swim any more.” Silence. I have nothing left. I put my head beneath the water.
I’ll just sink, I decide. I want to go, but I still can’t contemplate swallowing water. How do I drown myself ?
Suddenly, a sharp pain shoots through the top of my right arm, followed by hundreds of needle-like stings. They feel like mini explosions all over my body. I look down into clearer water to see that I’m surrounded by tiny Portuguese men o’ war. I’ve swum into a swarm of sinister stinging fire strings and they’re everywhere! Transparent, with small blue centres, their tentacles float out like liquid cobwebs and give out a thousand electric shocks. Surfers call them “ball biters” because they get into your baggies and sting your goolies.
They congregate around my neck, stinging my shoulders, upper back and chest.
“No!” I start thrashing about to disperse them. I desperately scoop the water away from me to move them from my path.
I’m going to be stung to death, I think. I have to get through them.
But just as quickly as they came, they are gone. I search the swirling waters around me but there is nothing. Not a single one left.
Were they even real or did I dream them, too?
The piercing pain and livid red stripes across my chest are the evidence that they were indeed there.
Stung, but not dead. I’m even a little disappointed. Why didn’t the volley of little shocks stop my heart?
Instead adrenalin surges through me. My entire system feels charged. Nature has plugged in and given me a thousand volts. It’s bizarrely restorative.