While searching for tuna last week, a helicopter pilot spotted something bobbing in the vast blue expanse of the Pacific Ocean, more than 1,200 miles from land.
It was a small white catamaran, badly damaged. Aboard it was a man with a shaggy, sun-bleached beard and bedraggled hair. He appeared somewhat dazed.
When a small boat sent by the helicopter caught up with him, he said his name was Timothy Shaddock and that he and his dog, Bella, had been at sea for about three months. He said he had survived in part by fishing for tuna, which he ate raw, and drinking rainwater.
On Tuesday, Mr. Shaddock, 54, walked down the gangway of the Maria Delia, the Mexican tuna trawler that had rescued him, and began to recount his remarkable story of survival.
He said he had battled exhaustion, despair and hunger, and was by turns philosophical, playful and somber.
“I did enjoy being at sea,” he told reporters on a dock in Manzanillo, Mexico. “I enjoy being out there. But when things get tough out there, you know, you have to survive. And then when you get saved, you feel like you want to live. So I’m very grateful.”
Mr. Shaddock, who is Australian, said that his saga began about three months ago when he and Bella set sail from Mexico for French Polynesia on his catamaran named Aloha Toa.
He said he was not sure why he had embarked on the journey of nearly 4,000 miles, but said: “I very much enjoy sailing and I love the people of the sea.”
Mr. Shaddock has an itinerant background.
In a 2013 interview, he described himself as a former information technology worker turned raw food entrepreneur who had conquered bowel cancer by eating raw vegetables.
“I recall spending over three months living solely on green vegetable juice at one stage,” he said in the interview. “I also spent much time in nature grazing on food grown straight from the garden and also wild foods in Australia’s bushland.”
Weeks into Mr. Shaddock’s voyage in the Pacific, a storm seriously damaged his catamaran, 9News, an Australian news station, reported. He said he had last spotted land under a full moon in the Sea of Cortez. After that, Mr. Shaddock said, there were “many, many, many bad days, and many good days.”
“The fatigue is the hardest part,” he said. “You’re always fixing something. And for me, I would try and find happiness inside myself. And I found that a lot, alone at sea. I would go in the water, too, and just enjoy being in the water.”
To supplement the “good provisions” he had on his boat, he “did a lot of fishing” and ate “a lot of tuna sushi,” he said. Still, he lost a lot of weight and was very hungry for weeks on end.
“My health was pretty bad for a while,” he said.
He said that Bella, his only companion on the boat, had helped him withstand the privations of the open ocean.
The dog had started following him before he had left Mexico, he said, and wouldn’t leave his side, even though he said he tried to find a home for her several times. Bella “just kept following me onto the water,” he said.
“She’s a beautiful animal,” he said. “I’m just grateful she’s alive. She’s a lot braver than I am, that’s for sure.”
When the helicopter that had launched from the Maria Delia circled over him on Thursday, Mr. Shaddock said, it was the first sign of human life he had seen in months.
“The pilot chucked me a drink,” he said.
Video of his rescue obtained by 9News showed Mr. Shaddock wearing two hats aboard his catamaran, saying: “I’ve just got fishing gear, survival gear.”
Later, he is shown smiling and shirtless aboard the tuna trawler, a blood pressure cuff around his arm.
“I have been through a very difficult ordeal at sea,” he says in the video. “I’m just needing rest and good food because I have been alone at sea a long time.”
He adds, “I have not had food, enough food, for a long time.”
Once he was rescued and on the trawler, he said on Tuesday, “I was just eating so much food.”
Grupomar, the company that owns the trawler, said it had notified the authorities, including officials at the Australian embassy, so that they could help Mr. Shaddock return home safely to Australia.
The Australian government released a statement saying that its Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade was “providing consular assistance to an Australian man rescued off the coast of Mexico.” It declined further comment, citing privacy obligations.
Mr. Shaddock said he was grateful to the captain of the trawler, Oscar Meza Oregón, the crew and Grupomar because “they saved my life.”
“I’m just so grateful I’m alive,” he said. “And I didn’t think I’d make it.”
Although he said he loved the ocean, he demurred when asked if he planned to sail again soon. “Probably not,” he said, laughing.
Source : Nytimes
