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Feature - April 2005

A Stroke of Luck
Text and photos by Karen and Ryan Kurytnik

A couple kayaking along the west coast of Thailand take a morning swim and survive the tsunami.

We slipped into the water fronting our camp on the jungle’s edge, donned our masks and fins, and kicked through the shallows to reach the deeper water where the coral thrived. Beneath us were dozens of blue and red speckled sea urchins. The jellyfish were out in numbers, and we had to keep alert to try to avoid their stings. A few minutes later, we reached the edge of the shallows, and below us were towers of coral rising some six to eight feet from the bottom. Brilliant orange clown fish hid in the swaying tentacles of the anemones while graceful angelfish grazed the surface of the coral.

Looking across to Ko Adang, the island where the authors went snorkling.
Looking across to Ko Adang, the island where the authors were snorkling.

Suddenly and inexplicably, the water was crowded with jellyfish, and their stings became more numerous and impossible to dodge. A current began to draw us away from shore. Alarmed, we both surfaced. Looking toward shore, we could see that the coral we’d glided over minutes before was exposed all the way to the beach, rising approximately four feet above the surface of the water. The effect was quite disorienting and made the beach look strangely unfamiliar. For a moment, I thought we had drifted in a current, but our tent and kayak were still on the shore directly in front of us. Why was all that coral suddenly exposed? Ryan considered the possibility of a tsunami, but that seemed incomprehensible. We wrestled with this strange current and tried to make sense of the rapidly and radically changing surroundings.


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