Dean's World

This guy's surfing really came in handy:

HIKKADUWA, Sri Lanka (Reuters) - British surfer Martin Markwell had always dreamed of catching that perfect wave — but when it finally came along, it was a nightmare.

Markwell was paddling on his surfboard Sunday off the popular Hikkaduwa beach resort on Sri Lanka's palm-fringed southern coast when he was swept up by a tsunami wave and sent crashing over a white sand beach and into a hotel restaurant.

"It was really terrible because I was surfing, I was really surfing on a wave I wasn't supposed to be on," he told Reuters.

"As an experienced surfer, when I saw the wave come I realized something was wrong, but I couldn't escape because my surfboard was tied to my ankle."

His wife Vicki and son Jake looked on in horror from a hotel balcony as he crashed toward the shore. Miraculously, he stayed atop his board until he reached the hotel, jumped off and waded to safety as the ocean rolled back to feed a much larger tsunami wave on its way.

The family regrouped and ran inland into jungle to safety just minutes before a giant tsunami wave 30 feet high crashed into Sri Lanka's coast, killing more than 28,500 people.

Markwell had the presence of mind to remember that key rule. If you're at an ocean and the surf pulls WAY back get out of there and head for the hills because it means something big is coming in.

UPDATE: Kevin Aylward urges caution on this story:

If the reason he couldn't escape the tsunami wave was his surf leash, they never quite explain why the leash wasn't a problem when he "jumped off" the board at the hotel. And of course there's the wife and child "watching in horror," which while possible seems like it might have been added to make the story more dramatic.

It's a good thing he and his family survived, but this smells of a fish story.

(link)

M. Scott Eiland (mail):

This reminds me of a memorable scene from the novel "Lucifer's Hammer" by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, when a group of surfers are caught up in a gigantic wave caused by an asteroid strike, and one by one they fall, until only one is left, riding the wave hundreds of feet off the ground and with the crest of the wave thousands of feet above him, with the scene ending with the surfer looking ahead and seeing a hotel in Santa Monica looming in his path.

1.1.2005 8:35pm

Dean Esmay (www):

I was just thinking to mail that to Pournelle...

1.1.2005 8:54pm

Arnold Harris (mail):

The only amazing story about the tsunami is that the governments of India, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Indonesia seem to have money for large armed forces and big talk at the UNO, but not enough money or trained personnel to staff at least one earthquake monitoring station that could have gotten off a local warning giving the location of the epicenter of the underwater earthquake and its relative strength, within 15 minutes of the time the event took place.

There is one thing and one thing only that can stop hundreds of thousands of people being crushed or drowned by a major tsunami. And that is to receive sufficient warning early enough to quickly walk to higher ground about 20ft or better above sea level.

And since it is possible to walk four miles in an hour, most of these victims could have been saved if they had been warned in time to evacuate the beach and get inland, regardless of cars, personal possessions, or other impedimenta. You'd be amazed what you can do to save your own life, if you are properly warned and motivated.

And if you aren't and you don't, then you just drown.

Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI

1.1.2005 9:13pm

I've seen it mentioned elsewhere since I made the comment above, Dean; obviously, we're not the only Niven/Pournelle fans out there by the remotest stretch of the imagination.

1.2.2005 1:07pm

Annoying Old Guy (mail) (www):

I would guess that the leash was a problem while in water too deep to walk, in which case he would have to swim while dragging along the board. Once he got to shallow water where he could stand up, he could carry the board without being slowed down much. Note that after he jumps off the board, he wades back to the hotel.

1.2.2005 6:04pm