They survived high seas by sheer grit

Mayandi, Partheban (35), Murthi (27), Madhan (22) and Vadivel (28) had set sail on August 21 in the motor boat Nova. It was incidentally the debut voyage for the boat. All was well for three days till the boat’s motor developed a snag and went kaput. The boat then started drifting in the eastern direction. Coast Guard personnel say the sea current can move static objects at the rate of 1.5 km per hour. Guided by nature’s hand, for the next 17 days the fishermen were adrift, with nothing in their line of vision except the sea rolling all the way to the horizon. But they remained hopeful of sighting land, surviving on a frugal diet of rice and the odd fish that they caught. Their instincts had trained them to restrict their liquid intake to half-a-glass of salt water. “Perfect for survival,” said Naval doctor T Devashish at the press meet held at Chennai Port.

“We survived on fish and turtle for the remaining days. We took turns to bale out the water and hardly slept,” says Partheban.

But on September 10, twenty days after setting sail, the fishermen had to abandon their boat which seemed in some danger of coming apart. A make-shift raft was made out of wood and thermocol. The four-feet raft had just enough space for the five to squat. They used their lungis to bind themselves together, “just so none of us fell off.”Soon, the make-shift raft drifted into international waters. The national water boundary ends 200 nautical miles or 364 km from the coast line.

“We knew that we were close to Myanmar. There have been several stories of Tamil Nadu fishermen being washed off to the coast there. So we still had a glimmer of hope,” Mayandi said.

Finally, it was on September 18 that a merchant ship, M V Jaya Mars, sighted the fishermen and sent out a message to Indian Coast Guard centres. By then, all the ships in the area had also been alerted about the missing fishermen.

The ship circled the raft at least four times before launching the rescue. “It was a great relief to all of us, ” one of the fishermen said recalling the rescue operations.

On confirming their identities, Coast Guard ship CGS Vikram then set off to bring the men back to Chennai. The Coast Guards ship caught up with the merchant ship on September 20. A copter was used to transfer the fishermen to the Coast Guard ship. The fishermen were attended to by the naval doctor present on board. “They were in a mildly dehydrated state. But apparently, they knew how to survive,”said the doctor.A tearful reunion with relatives at the Chennai port on Wednesday morning was the last chapter of the saga.

They are still exhausted and have lost their sleep and appetite.But it will not be long before they brave the seas again. Mayandi and his men hope to set sail after a month’s break.

“After all, it is our livelihood,”they said.