posted January 06, 2005 02:07 PM         

After five idyllic days of snorkeling, swimming, and sea kayaking on Phi-Phi Island, Thailand, the Gasser family chartered a sailboat that could take us to more remote and less crowded locales. Seeing this as a way to continue our travels through paradise, the four of us -- Davney, Dustin and Dante -- left the island of Phi-Phi on Dec. 22 for Koh Muk.

The islands in the Andaman Sea rise dramatically out of the ocean -- sharp limestone cliffs with lush jungles on the flatter parts -- and often have white coral beaches where the villages and the resorts are located. Most of the villages subsist on fishing, with everything else for the tourists brought in.

Christmas on the boat -- a 50-foot ketch -- was the best day possible, with perfect weather. We took a wonderful early morning foray into the famous Emerald Cave -- a low, narrow and dark passage through the limestone, which opens into a small beach area surrounded by cliffs, where pirates had undoubtedly buried their booty. This is a popular spot on Koh Muk, and we had it to ourselves. Later in the day, we snorkeled to near-exhaustion in crystal-clear, warm waters with hundreds of fish species, shopped in primitive and friendly shops in a Thai village, and followed this up with a turkey feast and party with fireworks on board the boat. We were enjoying life in paradise to the fullest.

Our fourth morning on the boat, Dec. 26, we were prepared to peg our fun meters yet again. We went on shore at Koh Muk after breakfast and walked through a village to see the inhabitants at their daily tasks. Most men were lounging or sleeping, having spent the moon-lit night fishing from their colorful (and noisy!) long-tailed boats, which were anchored or beached on the coral sands adjacent to the wood and sheet metal huts that were home. The women cleaned and cooked and tended small gardens, while children ran and laughed amid the chickens, dogs and cats. The friendly people would always allow photographs, and we took many.

One industrious man was working on a new bow to his boat, and we watched his skill with a power planer. Televisions were on in each hut we passed, and cell phones in common use. There was no alarm, nor apparent cause for one.

Walking across the narrow isthmus to the other side of this small island, we sauntered along the beach, enthusiastically picking up numerous shells that were new to us. While the plastic debris along the shoreline was upsetting, that seems to be the price that these beaches pay for the increasing tourist trade and attendant rise in economic conditions. Everyone lives on the beach and the tourists pay highest prices for the desirable beachfront locations.

As we idly walked toward the point where the west shore met the east, we separated slightly: Davney and Dustin were well out on the tip of the spit, Dante and I were nearer the coconut palms, looking at the sailboat, assuming that the captain was below decks attempting to solve the motor problem that had grown to be more of a concern (to him, not us) as the trip from Phi-Phi Island had progressed from idyllic island to island.

At about the same moment, Dante and I saw a white line extending across the entire sea within our view to the west. It took a while to process that we had seen nothing like that in our previous time in the Andaman Sea, where tides come and go without announcement, and shore waves are nearly non-existent.

Having read the book "Hawaii," by James Michener, I probably came to the conclusion a moment before Dante did that we were looking at something very unusual and potentially lethal. I yelled to Davney and Dustin with no response. I whistled to get their attention, and they looked up, but were marveling at their own finds. The water was dropping fast and was revealing hundreds of crabs that had not been obvious before. The water was getting lower and lower, exposing new wonders of the sea to them. They waved back, enjoying the changing conditions.

I dropped what I was carrying and let loose with my loudest whistle, while Dante joined me in frantic waving to get to get their attention. Fortunately, they understood that we wanted them here, NOW. They started to run toward us.

Looking along the beach toward the west, many villagers were near the shore and pointing to the sea. Some started running. There were many long-tailed boats at anchor in the protected bay, but the white line that we had seen was advancing fast and now we could see a series of large waves bearing down on them.

Then the most western point of the island was starting to be hit by a wave, clearly much higher than previous levels, perhaps by three meters. While Davney and Dustin ran toward us, Dante and I watched the anchored boats rise on the oncoming wave and start to move toward shore, starting to pull their anchors. We also saw our sailboat in the path of what was becoming a violent sea. Together again, the four of us ran to the shelter of the palms to see the first waves hit the sailboat and start to toss it like a cork. Hit sideways, the boat tipped radically. We hoped that Captain Mike had some warning or he could have easily been hurt by the violence of the waves, which continued unabated for perhaps 30 seconds. We did see him start the engine and turn into the waves. On shore, we watched awestruck as the first waves reached us, carrying our dinghy into the palms, the water finally passing by us without harm.

Almost immediately, the village was in action, long-tailed boats starting and racing to the west. Emerald Cave would have been loaded with tourists by then and help would undoubtedly be needed there and at other places that we did not know. We later heard that two had died in the cave and that scores were trapped inside -- perhaps for days. As news reached us, it was always the death count, not the injuries, which were many, that were highlighted.

We found Pi, our Thai cook, guide and friend, nearly hysterical with worry about her man Mike and the boat, the Sea Fun. She was ladened with fruit and bread purchases. We all went to the dinghy and carried it higher on the beach, tying it with a long rope to a coconut tree and then started walking to the east side of the island, several hundred meters away. Arriving at the pier, we saw boats had been tossed and one house was in the water, fallen at a weird angle.

At this point, things began to get surreal. We started to walk out on the pier to get a more complete picture of what had happened to the village when we heard and saw strange things. The ocean was rising. Not a wave, but the entire ocean was getting taller -- or we were sinking -- and the sound was like a great sucking. The pier started to submerge, water was blowing out of the holes, and it became clear that we were in the wrong place at the wrong time.

The water rose and rose and was coming in a huge flood with great speed. As the huts by the beach started to be surrounded by water, we headed the other direction. I have not run "full out" for some years, attributing my lack of activity to knee and foot problems, but no such excuse would work now. We ran.

After a few hundred meters, we could see that the water was going to rise no further, but we could also see that we had no way of predicting what was going to happen to an ocean that had gone mad. The trail that we had run along now had large debris floating across it -- containers, boat parts, clothing. The friendly Thai villagers who had allowed us to take a picture of them roasting coffee over a wood fire half an hour earlier now had no coffee-roasting facility to return to.

Now we were surrounded by villagers running and buzzing every which way on motor scooters, talking excitedly on cell phones, all crying and fearful. As a group, getting to high ground sounded like a very good idea, and an exodus from the village began, with pedestrians, motorbikes, wheeled carts all moving en masse up the single trail to the hillsides. I felt a twinge of guilt as I passed a middle-aged villager hobbling on his crutch being passed by the rest of us.

The jungle closed round us and we took refuge near a rubber processing facility -- a 6-meter-by-6-meter open air structure with some roller presses in it. They were working as though nothing had affected them. We were at an elevation perhaps 15 meters above the ocean at this point, surrounded by women, children, and a few old men. The male villagers were clearly occupied with pressing duties and were in harm's way. We sent a teenager with a motor scooter with some money to get bottled water, and he returned, thankfully with a load of it to pass out -- always welcome in the tropical heat.

This location did not appear to be high enough, so we moved again on a narrower trail. An older woman fell, blocking the trail, and could go no further. Dustin picked her up and carried her hundreds of meters to the next location in the middle of a rubber plantation, probably 30 meters above the water.

With no one around who could speak English or with whom to communicate, we could see that bad news was coming via cell phones, but had no idea what it was. We saw carts coming up with the precious color TV and little else on them.

We decided to return to the first spot of refuge and wait. There was general milling about in each direction and no good idea of what to do next. An old man came up from the village, ranting, and collapsed. Carried into the shade, Davney and Dustin helped to cool him down and he revived and was looking reasonably clear-headed when last we saw him.

At this location, we heard from the only other gringos that the third wave (or fourth?) was the worst of all, sweeping through the village and damaging what had been spared previously.

Finally deciding that it was safe, we returned to the village to find Pi and to survey the damage, which was substantial next to the beach, less obvious a little inland. Houses were gone and long-tailed boats tipped, turned and broken. The dinghy had been tossed and was loaded with sand and seaweed but was still serviceable. We made our way back to the sailboat to find a shaken captain who had arranged for us to get to the mainland via long-tail boat. He had learned that the boat's home base on Phi Phi was completely gone, and his main manager was missing. Pictures and e-mails since have confirmed that hundreds are dead and the bungalows swept clean from the beach, where we had stayed among them. We had come from a wonderful five days on Phi-Phi prior to sailing, and wondered at the fate of the friendly people we had met on this island paradise that had became a killing ground for this tsunami.