It was a quiet and sunny Sunday morning. The day looked promising for Cyril Lennon and his family as the thirty of them got onto the catamaran to Ilôt Gabriel. But don’t we know that nature is unforeseeable? This now infamous Sunday was the 26th December and… the catamaran was moored next to the islet when the tidal wave raged in the North.

Many people believe the tsunami didn’t affect Mauritius at all. Yet, people on the North coast can testify that Mauritius had a brush with tragedy on this fateful 26th December…

“All the boats were anchored at Ilôt Gabriel within feet of each other in what seemed to be a fairly safe bay around 11a.m.” All the guests were either in the sea or on the beach enjoying that beautiful Sunday. Children were playing around while the crew was busy getting lunch ready.

“It just so happened that all of our boat load of people were on board whilst I was still snorkelling in the water. I suddenly felt myself being dragged out to sea. I called for help and was rescued fairly promptly by some crew member,” recalls Cyril. It was the beginning of a nightmare, which lasted more than one hour!

The sea started to stir, the boat started to sway. The crews, realizing that they could not manoeuvre their respective craft, decided to set sail but to no avail. “It seemed as if we were caught in some kind of whirlwind with boats crashing into one another and the captains unable to steer their boats.”

A feeling of panic overcame all the children who started to cry… They didn’t understand what was happening… like everyone else on board in fact! “One catamaran crashed into us and got jammed under our rope and one of the passengers on our boat had to get out his own knife and cut us loose as we risked being dragged down.”

Of course such an event was perfectly unforeseeable. However, boats are supposed to be equipped with a means of communication so that coast guards can be warned if ever a problem occurs. This was obviously not the case on that day. “There was no radio on board and one of the crew’s mobiles was low on battery. Some of the Mauritian passengers had to use their own mobiles to get in touch with some other crews.”

“It is only when we decided to return to dry land that we were joined by a lifeguard boat with one broken engine, who enquired if we were alright and then moved on.” The catamaran finally reached safety. This dream day could have turned into some tragic event.

It was just a matter of luck that no real damage was done.