‘So grateful’: Australian sailor who survived three months adrift off Mexico back on dry land
An Australian sailor who was rescued by a Mexican tuna boat after being adrift at sea with his dog for three months has said he is grateful to be alive after setting foot on dry land for the first time since their ordeal began.
Timothy Lyndsay Shaddock, 54, disembarked in the Mexican city of Manzanillo after being examined on board the boat that rescued him, the Maria Delia.
“I’m feeling all right,” a smiling Shaddock, bearded and thin, told reporters on the dock in the port city about 340km (210 miles) west of Mexico City. “I’m feeling a lot better than I was, I tell you.
“To the captain and fishing company that saved my life, I’m just so grateful. I’m alive and I didn’t really think I’d make it,” he said, adding that his “amazing” dog Bella was also doing well.
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Shaddock described himself as a quiet person who loves being alone on the ocean. Asked why he had set out in April from Mexico’s Baja Peninsula to cross the Pacific Ocean to French Polynesia, he was initially at a loss.
“I’m not sure I have the answer to that but I very much enjoy sailing and I love the people of the sea,” he said. “It’s the people of the sea that make us all come together. The ocean is in us. We are the ocean.”
The Sydney man’s catamaran set sail from the Mexican city of La Paz but was crippled by bad weather weeks into the journey. He said the last time he had seen land was in early May as he sailed out of the Sea of Cortez. There was a full moon.
Shaddock said he had been well-provisioned but a storm had knocked out his electronics and ability to cook. He and Bella survived on raw fish.
“There were many, many, many bad days and many good days,” he said. “The energy, the fatigue is the hardest part.”
He passed the time fixing things and stayed positive by going into the water to “just enjoy being in the water”.
Asked what meal he was looking forward to the most, he replied: “Tuna sushi.”
When the tuna boat’s helicopter spotted Shaddock’s catamaran about 1,930km from land, it was the first sign of humans he had seen in three months. The pilot tossed him a drink then flew away, returning with a speedboat from the María Delia.
Grupomar, which operates the fishing fleet, didn’t specify when the rescue occurred. But it said Shaddock and his dog had been in a “precarious” state when found, lacking provisions and shelter, and that the tuna boat’s crew had given them medical attention, food and hydration.
Bella had been an immediate hit with the crew, Shaddock said. He also explained how he and the dog met.
“Bella sort of found me in the middle of Mexico,” he said. “She’s Mexican. She’s the spirit of the middle of the country and she wouldn’t let me go. I tried to find a home for her three times and she just kept following me on to the water. She’s a lot braver than I am, that’s for sure.”
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Perhaps for that reason, Bella did not leave the boat until Shaddock had driven away on Tuesday. He had chosen Genaro Rosales, a crew member from Mazatlan, to adopt her on the condition he would take good care of her.
Shaddock said he would be returning to Australia soon and that was looking forward to seeing his family.
There have been other stories of extreme ocean survival but they do not all end happily.
María Delia crew members with Bella. Shaddock has chosen one of them to adopt the dog. Photograph: Ulises Ruiz/AFP/Getty Images
In 2016 a Colombian fisher was rescued after spending two months adrift in the Pacific Ocean. Three of his crewmates died. He was rescued by a merchant ship more than 3,000km south-east of Hawaii. He and the others had been fishing off Colombia’s coast when their skiff’s motor failed.
In 2014 a Salvadoran fisher washed ashore on the tiny Pacific atoll of Ebon in the Marshall Islands after drifting for 13 months. José Salvador Alvarenga left Mexico for a day of shark fishing in December 2012. He said he had survived on fish, birds and turtles before his boat washed ashore 8,850km away.
In other cases, boats have been found but without survivors or are lost entirely. More than 20,000 migrants have died trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea to Europe since 2014, according to the International Organization for Migration.
Grupomar’s president, Antonio Suarez, said Tuesday that this could be the María Delia’s final trip because he was modernising the company’s fleet and the boat was its smallest and more than 50 years old.
If so, it would be a “marvellous farewell, saving human lives”, Suarez said.