Tourists who escaped a sinking boat in Indonesia swam to an island with an erupting volcano and survived by drinking their own urine and eating leaves.
Bertrand Homassel, a French survivor, said the boat started sinking slowly after its hull was damaged in a storm Friday night, and he and several others had to swim a long distance to a volcanic island to save themselves.
“Six people were in the lifeboat. The others climbed onto the roof of the boat, which had not completely sunk,” he said, speaking from a hotel in Bima on Sumbawa island, where the survivors were taken after being rescued.
“We waited until midday on Saturday. We were 5 kilometers [3 miles] from the coast — there were many big waves separating us from the coast.
“People started to panic … Everyone took the decision to swim to the closest island, five kilometers away, where there was an erupting volcano.”
He said they swam for six hours and arrived on the island, Sangeang, as the sun was setting. They spent Saturday night there, surviving by drinking their own urine and eating leaves.
On Sunday, they attracted the attention of a passing boat by waving their life jackets, and were rescued and taken to Bima, he said.
“I was really very lucky,” Homassel added.
More survivors have now been found alive. Only two of the 25 people on board the Versace Amara are now still missing, after authorities Monday found another 13 survivors.
And search and rescue official Budiawan — who, like many Indonesians, goes by one name — said there was information the two remaining passengers have also been found.
“Our ships are now going to several locations around Bima waters to follow this up,” Budiawan said.
Authorities say that most of the passengers are from Europe.
Budiawan said the latest group of survivors was found in the early hours of Monday by fishermen in waters near Sape, about 60 miles from where the boat hit a reef before sinking.
He said some were in a lifeboat and others were floating or suing life rings.
He said the focus now was on treating the survivors, and he had yet to receive a breakdown of their names or nationalities.
The vessel went down Saturday after being caught in a storm en route from Lombok island to Komodo island, the home of the Komodo dragon — the world’s biggest lizard and a draw for tourists.
The boat, a type of wooden Phinisi schooner, is understood to have hit a reef, although rescue officials late Sunday gave differing versions of what exactly had happened to the vessel.
Those initially rescued were from New Zealand, Britain, Spain, the Netherlands, Germany and France, said Budiawan.
They had all received medical treatment, officials said.
The nationalities of all the foreigners still missing was not immediately clear. The missing Indonesians were four boat crew members and a tour guide.
Suryaman, a search and rescue official in Bima, said five of the tourists were rescued by fishermen at night, and five others were saved by a sailing boat.
Suryaman said the boat appeared to have hit a reef about 1:15 a.m. local time Saturday, causing a serious leak.
He said the crew tried to bring the boat to land but bad weather prevented them, and at about 7 p.m. Saturday, the boat, which had been filing with water, capsized.
At about 8 p.m., local fishermen found five people in the water and saved them. Another five were saved by a different boat and all are now in a hospital in Bima, on Sumbawa Island.
The survivors include a 29-year-old and 53-year-old Dutch woman, two 21-year-old German women, a 33-year-old Frenchman, a male and female from Spain, a British woman, a male and female from New Zealand.
They were named as Els Visser, 29, from the Netherlands; Hannah Schole, 21, from Germany; Norensch Wickhow, 21, from Germany; Cayleng Cheryl, 53, from the Netherlands; Bertrand Homassel, 33, from France; Rafael Martinez from Spain; Maria Pallol from Spain; a British woman known only as Katherine Anne; Tony Francis Lawton and Gaylene Cheryl Wilkinson from New Zealand.
The names were provided by authorities on the scene late Sunday.
The Bima police chief, Lt. Col. Benny Basir Warmansyah, said the accident happened in the waters of Sangeang, near Sangeang Mountain.
He said the boat was on the way from Senggigi on Lombok to Labuhan Bajo when it was hit by a wave.
Phinisi schooners regularly ply the eastern Indonesian waters, taking tourists diving and between the islands which form the Nusa Tenggara region.
Surfing charters are popular in the area where the boat sank, with many operating from Lombok and along reefs found near the islands.
The charters typically are for several days aboard boats which carry up to 25 passengers, plus crew.
The boats travel to surf breaks, such as Nusa, where surfers are dropped near the breaks before being collected.
They usually eat and sleep aboard the boats as they travel between the islands and the surfing locations.
Indonesia relies heavily on boats to connect its more than 17,000 islands, but has a poor maritime safety record.
Two vessels sank last month in different parts of the archipelago as millions traveled for the Muslim Eid holiday, leaving at least 36 people dead.