Two weeks after Cyclone Ockhi hit the Arabian Sea in which around 400 fishermen from Kanniyakumari district went missing, the hopes of a majority of fishermen families of a miraculous return of their dear ones may seem unrealistic to outsiders.
However, the people of Thoothoor and nearby villages, which account for a majority of the missing fishermen, have a number of stories to share about the miraculous return of men, believed to be dead by their families.
One such story – apparently a record of sort in the area known for deep-sea fishing – is the ordeal of five men from Thoothoor, who survived in the sea for 58 days with no communication equipment and limited supply of food and water, before being rescued by the Indian Navy way back in 1996.
The families of the five men, three of whom were siblings, then aged 27, 25 and 23, had even completed all the last rituals at the village church when they received a call one day that all of them were alive.
The Hindu met S. Thamians, the eldest in the group, which included J. Hercules and R. Lygin, apart from his younger brothers S. Joy and S. Germanus, who vividly remembers the greatest story of his life.
On October 10, they began their journey in a rented mechanised boat from Malpe harbour in Karnataka with no wireless or other communication equipment. They just had a mariner’s compass. “Those days, we did not have ice. Instead, we used to carry salt for preservation and our expeditions would not last for more than two weeks,” he says.
On the ninth day of their expedition, the boat’s engine came to a halt due to a failure in the battery. They had consumed nearly three-fourths of the 1,000 litres of water they had carried in two plastic tanks, and they had less than half a sack of rice, according to Mr. Thamians.
By mixing available water with seawater for drinking, boiling rice once a day with salt water and eating it along with fish, the crew survived another 49 days, and their boat drifted in the direction the wind.
“Since I was the eldest, I had the responsibility of not letting our hopes die. In moments of hopelessness, we used to sit around and share incidents of our youthful escapades and love stories back home to keep the spirits up. Although, I wept many times in private, I did not show it to others,” he adds.
“On the last week, we had to drink only salt water and the rice was almost getting over. Our hope of rescue also diminished,” he says.
Keeping turn, the crew members used to light fire on clothes soaked in diesel tied to the tip of an iron rod and hold it up in the night to get the attention of any passing boat or ship. They also stitched together gunny bags and flew them as sails in the day time, but no help came till a navy ship intercepted them on the 58th day around 100 nautical miles off Karnataka coast.
Mr. Thamians, who is now married with two children, remembers many newspapers carrying the news of their 58-day-ordeal in great detail. “Though the case of Cyclone Ockhi is different as the wind would have damaged the boats and possibly thrown away all the supplies, our fishermen would still survive if their boats had not drowned. The government must not give up the search and rescue mission,” he says.
