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I’ve been on the island of Nias, about 120 kilometres off the west coast of Indonesian Sumatra, since Tuesday, covering the incredible tale of Australians Elliot Foote, Steph Weisse, Jordan Short and Will Teagle, who were missing at sea with their Indonesian boat crew for 36 hours before being found clinging to their surfboards.
Australians Jordan Short, Will Teagle, Elliot Foote and Steph Weisse with Yustinus Sega, centre, the Indonesian search and rescue officer who found three of them on Tuesday. The fourth, Foote, was picked up by fishermen.Credit: GoFundMe
Nias, the island they set off from before running into a storm, has long been a sought-after destination for Australian surfers. They come for the world-class waves, the pristine landscape and the remote appeal of the Indonesian archipelago’s westernmost reaches.
The discovery of the four Australians and two of the three Indonesian men who were on a wooden longboat with them was a triumph of resilience and resourcefulness, with a fair dash of luck.
Before flying over here from my base in Singapore I feared I might be reporting on a very different outcome. Foote’s father, Peter, however, was quite optimistic when I rang him in Sydney on Monday night, by which time the group had been missing for a full night and day. They had life jackets, he said, there was food and water on the boat, plus they had their boards and, as surfers, a knack for looking after themselves in the ocean.
Inset: Elliot Foote after he was rescued. The moment three Australians and one Indonesian crew member were rescued.
Peter wasn’t to know that by then the boat itself was long gone, having been hit by a storm the previous evening, sending everyone overboard.
But the group’s eight other friends here pulled together with rescue crews and fishermen, officials from the Australian embassy in Jakarta and other volunteers, such as an Australian catamaran skipper, to eventually find them alive.
My colleague Karuni Rompies and I visited the Nias branch of Indonesia’s National Search and Rescue Agency yesterday, and learnt more about the tireless efforts of the authority’s orange-clad officials and field personnel.
#Search #missing #man #Fivan #Satria #continues
