Typhoon in the Lagoon

Tom Booth has travelled far from his native England in search of dazzling tropical beauty. In 2015, he’s working as a cruise director onboard a yacht in Micronesia, guiding divers down to spectacular naval ruins at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. But when a typhoon blows in, he and his crewmates are suddenly vulnerable to the devastating power of nature. And when the captain becomes incapacitated, it falls on Tom to step up… A Noiser podcast production. Hosted by John Hopkins. Written by Edward White | Produced by Ed Baranski | Assistant Producer: Luke Lonergan | Exec produced by Joel Duddell | Sound supervisor: Tom Pink | Sound design by Matt Peaty | Assembly edit by Rob Plummer and Anisha Deva | Compositions by Oliver Baines, Dorry Macaulay, Tom Pink | Mix & mastering: Ralph Tittley. For ad-free listening, bonus material and early access to new episodes, join Noiser+. Click the subscription banner at the top of the feed to get started. Or go to noiser.com/subscriptions If you have an amazing survival story of your own that you’d like to put forward for the show, let us know. Drop us an email at [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:30John Hopkins?

  It's afternoon on March 29, 2015, in the central Pacific Ocean.

• 0:37John Hopkins?

  On any normal day, the atoll known as the Chuk Lagoon is a glorious sight. A collection of small, beautiful islands, blessed with lush, verdant plant life and golden beaches. All surrounded by vivid blue skies and sparkling seas that stretch further than the eye can see.

• 0:57John Hopkins?

  Today, however, Chuk Lagoon is the scene of diabolical chaos.

• 1:03John Hopkins?

  A storm is raging. Typhoon Maasak.

• 1:08John Hopkins?

  Out at sea, vessels of all description are being thrown around by screaming 100 mile per hour winds. Rain pounds down as though in solid blocks.

• 1:19John Hopkins?

  Aboard one of those vessels, clinging onto a steel railing with all his might, is Tom Booth, 28-year-old cruise director of a tourist yacht.

• 1:29John Hopkins?

  An expert diver, Tom is used to life out on the ocean. But he's never known anything like this.

• 1:37Speaker 02

  I'd experienced rough weather at sea, but nothing compared to what we experienced in Chuk. The strength of the wind and being soaking wet is chilling. And I was knackered. I was exhausted.

• 1:49John Hopkins?

  Careening around the lagoon, the yacht is battered by the elements. Great waves wash over the deck, smashing through windows and doors. And then, from the depths of the hull, an ungodly noise rises as the propeller grinds into a giant mass of coral hidden beneath the waves.

• 2:11John Hopkins?

  The yacht judders and lurches alarmingly to one side. Teetering almost horizontally over the sea, Tom loses his footing, collides with a table, and sees four crewmates tumble into the water.

• 2:26John Hopkins?

  For those left on board, it's a horrifying sight.

• 2:30John Hopkins?

  But there's nothing they can do. They can't go in after them. They just have to try to stay alive themselves.

• 2:38Speaker 02

  I was concerned, but they then fell outside of the environment, if that makes sense. There were still crew members on board who were absolutely terrified.

• 2:48John Hopkins?

  The yacht crunches and clatters over the reef. Sharp underwater tendrils gnaw into the belly of the boat. All the while, the brutal wind pulls relentlessly on the vessel's hardware. Soon, the giant steel cables that tether the mast to the deck are ripped from their fixings. Tom watches in horror as one of the flailing cables whips the yacht captain around the head, knocking him to the floor. The captain doesn't move.

• 3:20John Hopkins?

  An awful situation has become even more grave.

• 3:24John Hopkins?

  Here they are, on the open sea, assailed by a typhoon from above and coral reef from below.

• 3:32John Hopkins?

  The yacht is falling to pieces, and the captain is lying lifeless on the deck.

• 3:38Speaker 02

  I remember seeing it happening, and he just went out, cold. He hit the deck, face down. The water running across the deck, he was about two, three feet deep, and yeah, face down in the water. The boat was still moving violently. I didn't know if he was dead. I was scared.

• 4:04John Hopkins?

  Ever wondered what you would do when disaster strikes? If your life depended on your next decision, could you make the right choice? Welcome to Real Survival Stories. These are the astonishing tales of ordinary people thrown into extraordinary situations. People suddenly forced to fight for their lives.

• 4:24John Hopkins?

  In this episode, we meet Tom Booth, a young man who roams far from his native England to discover dazzling tropical beauty, above sea and below. In 2015, Tom is working as a cruise director on board a yacht in Micronesia, guiding divers down to spectacular naval ruins at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. But when a typhoon blows in, he and his crewmates become vulnerable to the devastating power of nature. Their vessel is never far from land. At times, they're close enough to jump ship and paddle to the shore, in theory, at least. But the typhoon flips their world upside down, trapping them in constant peril.

• 5:08John Hopkins?

  This fearsome storm looks certain to condemn every last one of them to the bottom of the ocean.

• 5:14Speaker 02

  We didn't expect a full-blown typhoon. The waves, the sudden onslaught of the wind and the rain, the complete disappearance of visibility. At that point, I think all control was lost to the vessel.

• 5:28John Hopkins?

  Threat comes from all angles, from the swirling tempest, from the malfunctioning yacht, and even later, from other people. With the captain incapacitated, Tom is going to have to step up to help himself and his crew.

• 5:42Speaker 02

  Earlier, when I was completely out of control, the only person who could help us was the captain. I was just stood as a passenger. But at that point, there were things to do, there were people to help.

• 5:54John Hopkins?

  I'm John Hopkins from the Noiser Podcast Network. This is Real Survival Stories.

• 6:22John Hopkins?

  It's 9 a.m. on March 28, 2015, a beautiful day on the Pacific island of Weenow. Part of the Chuk Lagoon, an atoll within the federated states of Micronesia, Weenow this morning is the image of a tropical paradise. The shining sun dazzles in a clear cobalt-blue sky. The mountains are thick with verdant vegetation. The lagoon water is an inviting turquoise.

• 6:52John Hopkins?

  At the port, the day is well underway. On the deck of a tourist yacht, Tom Booth sits at his laptop, busying himself with admin before the next party of guests arrive. As a cruise director and diving expedition leader, he's seen some of the world's most stunning locations.

• 7:11John Hopkins?

  But for Tom, Chuk Lagoon, or Truck Lagoon, as some refer to it, has a particular allure.

• 7:19Speaker 02

  Truck is a diver's dream destination. Basically, there's a tropical lagoon in diveable depths with a huge amount of wartime wrecks. The ships are still full of tanks. In the holes is aeroplanes, ammunition, beach mines. And the vessels themselves have got really interesting history. So yeah, if you're interested in wrecks, then Truck Lagoon is probably the premier destination in the world.

• 7:47John Hopkins?

  It's all a very long way from home. Growing up in Northern England, Tom was more accustomed to industrial cities and slate grey skies and coral reef and swaying palm trees.

• 7:59Speaker 02

  I grew up in West Yorkshire. My interest as a diver started when I was about 15 when my dad, who's a qualified diver, took me diving in a river in North Yorkshire. It was fantastic.

• 8:12John Hopkins?

  After earning qualifications in canoeing, climbing and mountaineering, Tom found himself looking for adventure.

• 8:19Speaker 02

  Just a wanderlust, really. I left college, I did a two-year qualification in outdoor leadership and then left without a job and immediately found myself working in a foundry where we're rolling nickel alloys, which was great, it was a good laugh. But seeing my colleagues who were nearing retirement, counting down the days with bad backs, didn't make me want to wish the next 30 years to disappear.

• 8:48John Hopkins?

  At first, Tom went to France, where he taught canoeing. Next, he headed much further east to Thailand, where he could pursue another passion.

• 8:57Speaker 02

  I was a martial artist, so I moved to Thailand in 2009. I was doing some training and some competing out there and needed a way to make money. So I borrowed some cash and did a professional dive instructor's qualification and started teaching diving in Thailand, in Phuket.

• 9:17John Hopkins?

  Skip forward five years, and Tom returned to the UK, still diving, yet this time for aquaculture projects in an environment that could barely be further from the sun-kissed shores of the Pacific.

• 9:29Speaker 02

  In the winter of 2014, I was being lifted out of a salmon pen, covered in the remains of dead fish, with the snow blowing into my face, my fingers cold. And when I got back to my digs that night, there was an email from my old employee asking me to help to set up the region in Truck Lagoon. So I jumped at the opportunity. Thoughts of going back to the tropics and not being in freezing blizzards in north of Scotland was very appealing, so I packed my bags and, yeah, set off to Truck.

• 10:03John Hopkins?

  Today, on this March morning in 2015, the Chuck Lagoon is at its beautiful best. As Tom checks his emails on the deck of the yacht, the rest of the crew busy themselves elsewhere on the vessel.

• 10:16John Hopkins?

  In total, there are 14 staff on board, mostly from the Philippines and Indonesia. In addition to Tom, there are housekeeping staff, a chef, an engineer, and Deng, the ship's captain, a native of Indonesia and a vastly experienced sailor in these waters.

• 10:33John Hopkins?

  Today is a changeover day. A chance to do paperwork, restock supplies, perform maintenance, prepare the yacht for the next batch of guests, and gossip about the ones who've just departed.

• 10:46John Hopkins?

  Spirits among the crew are high. Life is good.

• 10:51Speaker 02

  It's a very relaxed trip. The crew were happy, the guests had left happy. There was no major maintenance work to do, so it was a really nice changeover day. We'd gone into the port itself, so crew were free to leave and get back on the vessel and do the shopping and things like that. And yeah, I was just steadily doing my accounts and relaxing.

• 11:15John Hopkins?

  Preparation for the new arrivals is well underway when a crew member from a nearby yacht relayed some news. An almighty storm has been forecast in the area for the following day.

• 11:26John Hopkins?

  No question this is a serious development, but Tom isn't prone to panic.

• 11:31Speaker 02

  As I recall, we were told it was a tropical depression, which I understood meant bad weather. I don't think it was common for typhoons to develop specifically where we were. I've been involved in some heavy weather events in the Maldives. We ran a diving region there and the company kept us going right through the southwest monsoons. I experienced bad weather before and wasn't terrified.

• 12:00John Hopkins?

  Others are less sanguine. Tom looks on as the yacht's engineer takes it upon himself to secure objects that aren't bolted to the deck floor.

• 12:10John Hopkins?

  That afternoon, Captain Deng repositions the vessel to a spot that he thinks will offer better protection for the forecasted storm.

• 12:18John Hopkins?

  As he heads to his bunk on the yacht later that evening, Tom's mood remains good. Incliment weather is all part of the job. In fact, a gathering storm just makes things more interesting.

• 12:30Speaker 02

  I like excitement, there is danger there, so it does sharpen the senses. And thought of being in a weather event did excite me.

• 12:42Speaker 03

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• 13:01John Hopkins?

  Morning arrives. As usual, Tom is up early.

• 13:05John Hopkins?

  Ordinarily, he likes to take advantage of the quiet to prep for the day ahead before crew and guests surface. Not today. From his cabin, he can hear activity above. The main engine is already running, rain is falling, and the wind is now blowing hard.

• 13:22John Hopkins?

  The yacht is fairly still. With so many vessels sheltering in the port, there's not enough open water to allow large waves to form.

• 13:32John Hopkins?

  But the strength of the wind is undeniable.

• 13:36John Hopkins?

  As Tom clambers above deck, he looks up and sees the gusts pushing and pulling the mass of rigging that towers overhead.

• 13:46Speaker 02

  In the morning, yeah, there was a high of activity and people were on edge and the boat was rocking. There was already strong winds. We were anchored behind a protective reef, so the island of Wenno, which is the biggest island in the lagoon, offered the best protection. So our vessel, plus, I believe, another six vessels were anchored in the same location to get that protection from those northeasterly winds that we were experiencing.

• 14:13John Hopkins?

  The deck is all movement, all action. The nervy crew buzz around. Tom and his yachtmates set about securing and reinforcing whatever they can, but especially everything that's attached to the huge canvas-topped canopy that hovers over the rear of the vessel.

• 14:33John Hopkins?

  As morning progresses, the wind only gets stronger. The yacht begins to hobby-horse, pitching forward and backwards like a seesaw. The bow dips in and out of the water.

• 14:46John Hopkins?

  Under the strain of the increasingly hostile conditions, little by little, the anchor is dragged from its spot on the seafloor. The yacht is visibly moving.

• 14:59John Hopkins?

  The captain makes a decisive call. He announces he is going to raise the anchor, move to a more sheltered spot, and drop anchor again. Drenched to the bone in the unrelenting downpour, Tom scurries to the prow to help raise the anchor.

• 15:15John Hopkins?

  Captain Deng now relocates the yacht, guiding it through the bouncing, frothing swell before settling on a new spot. Fingers crossed the anchor will wedge itself in more tightly in this new location. Tom now takes the opportunity to swap his sodden shorts and t-shirt for something more weather appropriate: a wetsuit.

• 15:36Speaker 02

  It was bad weather. It was low visibility, there was rain, and the wind was gaining strength. I'd have to estimate, but I'd say around 50 knots of wind in gusts.

• 15:47John Hopkins?

  Fifty knots equates to roughly 60 miles per hour, a strong gale-force wind. Despite this, Tom remains his usual, composed self. But with the gift of hindsight, the worsening conditions should have been the signal for most of those on board to get as far away as possible.

• 16:05Speaker 02

  A hundred percent. I'd think if I was to be faced with a similar situation again, we'd have got the non-essential personnel off the vessel. It was an ordeal they didn't need to go through and it probably, myself included, didn't need to be on that vessel that day. The core ship's crew, the deckhands, the captain, the engineer would have been adequate, but naively, the whole crew stayed on the vessel.

• 16:31John Hopkins?

  But then, quite suddenly, it seems as though a storm might be passing them by. As though mechanically powered, the wind and rain stopped dead. The tempest that just seconds earlier was fermenting all around them disappears without a trace.

• 16:49Speaker 02

  It was serene, actually. All of a sudden, the wind stopped and the water was glass calm. I think I was a little bit disappointed. I thought that was the worst of it. I was expecting something a bit more than that. But there was relief as well. It was back to life. You know, the flight will be rescheduled, we'll get the guests in early, and they'll have a good holiday.

• 17:10John Hopkins?

  Miraculously, the Chuk Lagoon has been spared. Or so it seems.

• 17:17John Hopkins?

  In the unexpected quiet, the ship's mobile phone chirps into life. On the other end of the line is a crew member from a neighboring yacht. It's bad news. There, weather information tells them something deeply unnerving. The danger hasn't passed them by. In fact, they are all slap-bang in the eye of the storm. The bad weather is circling them, like a predator circling prey. And pretty soon, it'll be coming back with a vengeance from the opposite direction.

• 17:50Speaker 02

  He saw that there was actually a typhoon developing there and then, and we were pretty much in the eye of the storm. And his instructions were, "The wind's gonna change 180 degrees and come a lot stronger."

• 18:04John Hopkins?

  Despite his wealth of experience, this is a first for Tom. He's never encountered a typhoon before. A type of storm characterized by its powerful swirling winds and torrential rain, a typhoon, as it's called in the Pacific region, is essentially the same thing that is known in other parts of the world as a hurricane.

• 18:25John Hopkins?

  Tom and the crew are now in the path of Typhoon Maisak. And being in the path of one of these beasts while at sea is about as dangerous as it gets. Plus, if the gales are gonna come back from a different direction, it means the spot they've just moved to is no longer a safe haven. They need to take advantage of this lull and move as quickly as possible to somewhere else that offers greater protection.

• 18:51Speaker 02

  So at that point, it was a mad scramble. We go out on deck. The intention was to raise the anchors, turn around 180 degrees, and move behind. The island that's opposite went open, which would then give us protection from a southwesterly. It was serious again, and we needed to act.

• 19:09John Hopkins?

  The anchor is lifted again. With the motor roaring, Captain Deng pushes the yacht across the lagoon. It's a race against time to beat Typhoon Maisak as it swirls back around.

• 19:22John Hopkins?

  But it's a race that can't be won.

• 19:25Speaker 02

  Looking out of the bow, we could see the island and then it disappeared. Anybody who's familiar with a squall is like a wall of rain that comes in. And I've seen them before, but this was very dramatic. It crossed the island, the trees disappeared, the beach disappeared. And then very quickly, the few kilometres of ocean ahead of us started disappearing as well. Until all of a sudden, that wall of rain and wind hit us straight on the bow. And the ship juddered. It was a shock.

• 19:55John Hopkins?

  In the blink of an eye, the yacht and its crew are plunged into the frenzy of the typhoon. Sea mist and thick rain close in all around until they consume the vessel, rendering visibility next to zero.

• 20:10John Hopkins?

  There are islands all around them. Land is almost cruelly close, but nothing can be spied in the darkness of the storm. The surface of the sea pulses and heaves, and the immense gales toy with the yacht, forcing it to tip and spin. Urgently, a crew member grabs life jackets and hands them out. Despite the filthy conditions, Tom is reluctant to take one.

• 20:36Speaker 02

  I did take the life jacket, but at first I thought it was more of a hindrance than an aid. I'm very comfortable in the water, I'm a good swimmer. But he certainly did the right thing. I was very naive.

• 20:49John Hopkins?

  The threat of capsizing or falling overboard has become very real. At one point, the tiniest chink appears in the wall of grey. Tom squints through the gap. The sight confronting him is not at all welcome.

• 21:05Speaker 02

  We had our nose into the wind. We're still heading towards the, what we hoped was, protection of the island. But we had no visibility. All of a sudden, the visibility opened up. And directly ahead of us was another vessel.

• 21:20Speaker 02

  The captain saw it and had to go hard over, starboard. And immediately, we felt that wind smash into the boat and really keel us over. There were six other moored vessels, and it was blind man's buff where everyone had blindfolded on.

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• 22:03John Hopkins?

  It's afternoon on March 29, 2015, and a typhoon is causing havoc in Chuk Lagoon in the Pacific Ocean. Onboard a tourist yacht, Tom Booth watches in horror as his vessel veers perilously close to another ship also struggling in the watery chaos. Tom's captain turns the wheel hard.

• 22:25John Hopkins?

  Unable to properly see the nearby boat, he is relying on years of honed instinct to avoid a potentially fatal accident.

• 22:34John Hopkins?

  The yacht turns sharply starboard. A wave crashes down on the deck. Several of Tom's colleagues, the housekeeping staff, are literally swept off their feet. Bodies slide across the deck. Screams of panic dissipate into the cacophony of the storm.

• 22:52Speaker 02

  I was holding on to a steel support from the rear canopy, and a crew member immediately got washed off her feet. I had to grab her by a life jacket and pull her in and get her to hold on to the support as well.

• 23:04John Hopkins?

  Captain Deng has successfully averted a collision with the other boat. But this has created a different problem. In order to prevent the crash, the captain has had to change the direction of the yacht. Instead of facing directly into the storm, the craft now has the wind pummeling it from the side.

• 23:24John Hopkins?

  Water continues to pour in, flooding the spaces below deck. It's imperative to turn the yacht's bow back into the wind to face it head-on and regain some semblance of balance. The captain steers hard and pushes the throttle to its limit. Thick, black smoke bellows. Yet, no matter how hard he tries, he cannot get the boat to turn.

• 23:51John Hopkins?

  Tom looks around, hoping to find some way of helping. On the starboard side, he notices that one of the skiffs, a small auxiliary vessel that is attached by a rope to the side of the yacht, has been flipped right over in the wind. It's now dragging in the water behind the yacht, like a ball and chain, preventing them from moving freely.

• 24:12Speaker 02

  I could see out behind us and the waves had actually capsized that vessel and it was just a big sea anchor. So I'd actually put a wet seat on earlier in the day and in the pocket I keep a dive knife. So I pulled that dive knife out and remember quite clearly, I just touched, felt like touched my knife to this rope and the tension in the line, it just parted and snapped with a quite an incredible force and as soon as that went, we felt the vessel turning and captain managed to get the bow back into the waves.

• 24:44John Hopkins?

  Disaster has been averted. Facing the right way once more, the yacht has a fighting chance against the pitiless wind. Though it doesn't feel like it, Captain Deng's heroics at the wheel can't prevent the craft from being tossed and battered on the sea.

• 25:02John Hopkins?

  In the adrenalized mayhem, with hardly any visibility and no reference points beyond the boat, it's impossible to tell how much time is passing.

• 25:12John Hopkins?

  But at some point, Tom experiences something deeply unusual, an incongruous reminder of his time as a competitive martial artist.

• 25:23Speaker 02

  I fought in front of large crowds of people and my knees shake. I don't know if it's nerves or fear, but as we're being smashed through this way, the bow of the vessel is back into the waves and I'm hanging on on this steel upright. And at that point, my knees were doing their knocking trick.

• 25:40John Hopkins?

  Naturally enough, it's not just Tom who's feeling scared.

• 25:43Speaker 02

  There was a cry next to me and the chef was a devout Christian, I found out. And he dropped to his knees and started like an evangelical preacher screaming out, "Jesus, I come to you in heaven" and all sorts of things. And looking over and seeing the fear on his face actually straightened me out and I got my senses back again at that point.

• 26:08John Hopkins?

  The frenzy continues, on and on. After a while, the toll on the yacht begins to show.

• 26:17John Hopkins?

  Onboard are three electric generators, vital to power specialist kit like dive compressors, as well as basic necessities such as lighting.

• 26:28John Hopkins?

  And there are electric lights studded all the way around the steel frame of the large canopy at the back of the vessel, the one that's covered by a canvas awning and which offers the crew at least some protection from the elements.

• 26:41John Hopkins?

  As the yacht bucks on the waves, Tom reaches out a hand to steady himself. His palm grabs at the steel frame of the canopy.

• 26:50John Hopkins?

  And he receives a sharp, painful jolt.

• 26:54John Hopkins?

  He yelps and pulls away.

• 26:57John Hopkins?

  Not an inch of this boat is free from danger.

• 27:00Speaker 02

  Some of these electrical cables must have parted slightly. I'm not an electrician, but there was electricity going through this steel frame. Every time I touched certain parts of it, I was getting electric shocks. I'd stagger into something, put my hand out to steady myself, and then recoil once I got an electric jolt.

• 27:21John Hopkins?

  And in the storm, there is no way of telling whether the yacht is charging across the lagoon or floating in place.

• 27:28John Hopkins?

  At a certain point, the outside world reappears. Once again, Tom catches sight of another vessel, a hulking monster this time, a large fishing ship weighed down at anchor.

• 27:40John Hopkins?

  With the fate of everybody onboard in his hands, the captain does what he can.

• 27:46Speaker 02

  The only evasive action the captain could take was slam the vessel into reverse. To this day, I don't know if we hit that vessel. Obviously, the visibility was on and off, and the violence of the wind, I didn't know if there was a collision or not.

• 27:59John Hopkins?

  There's a series of violent bumps and bounces, but the yacht remains the right way up on the waves. Though no sooner is that obstacle navigated than another crops up. Foaming white surf, breaking only two boat lengths away, unmistakable evidence of coral reef. The captain leans into the wheel once more. He guides the yacht around the hazard that threatens to damage the hull. But the wind is so strong, it shoves the vessel off course.

• 28:30John Hopkins?

  As the gales thump the starboard side of the yacht, Captain Deng struggles to maintain control. A deluge of water hits the deck now, taking down doors and windows.

• 28:41John Hopkins?

  As Tom grips the nearest available surface, the bottom of the yacht clatters into the reef.

• 28:47Speaker 02

  At that point, above the judders and the shudders from the wind, there was another bumping-scraping noise. I seem to remember the propeller sort of bouncing along, scraping on the coral reef. So as we hit that, we're against the movable object on the seabed, and the wind still forces us from starboard, and the ship started really keeling over.

• 29:08John Hopkins?

  Caught between the reef and the wind, the boat lists ever further on its side. Eventually, it rocks its way over the obstacle and smacks back down onto the water.

• 29:21John Hopkins?

  Tom clings to a table that keeps him out of the deep. Others aren't so fortunate.

• 29:29Speaker 02

  Four crew members went overboard. I'm not sure why. I don't know if they jumped or someone fell and others went to save them, but they went over.

• 29:37John Hopkins?

  Stunned, Tom attempts to deploy a life raft. Yet, in the conditions, it proves impossible.

• 29:44Speaker 02

  There's a mechanism to set off the inflatable life raft. I pulled that, and before it'd even inflated, the strength of the wind had caught it, and it was like a kite. It ripped the rope straight out my hand, and this life raft just snapped its tether and we've never seen again.

• 30:00John Hopkins?

  Four crewmates have disappeared into the sea. And there's now no way to bring them back.

• 30:07John Hopkins?

  But from Tom's perspective, there's too much at stake to dwell on this now.

• 30:11Speaker 02

  I was concerned, but there were still crew members on board, one of which was a non-swimmer. Captain Deng, he saw the members go overboard and they're his crew, so that obviously had an effect on him. But they then fell outside of the environment, if that makes sense. They were out of the situation then, as far as I was concerned.

• 30:31John Hopkins?

  In no time, the yacht crunches into the reef again, and the vessel is stuck in place once more, rocking violently.

• 30:39John Hopkins?

  Prone on the coral, Typhoon Maasak does its worst.

• 30:45John Hopkins?

  And now, another concern takes shape. What might happen should the wind get beneath the large canvas stretched across the back of the yacht?

• 30:56John Hopkins?

  Suddenly, the crew find out.

• 30:59Speaker 02

  The fear of wind getting underneath this canopy and ripping the whole thing off was real. And as the wind pushes against the reef and the boat listed over, eventually, it did. It was like an umbrella in a very strong wind. Rips this canopy and the handrail that was attached to it off the stern of the vessel. I was amazed that it hadn't struck anyone and, yeah, it just killed someone immediately if I'd hit them or seriously injured them.

• 31:28John Hopkins?

  Canopy flies off, leaving the remaining crew with no protection. Several hundred kilos' worth of metal scatters across the sea.

• 31:38John Hopkins?

  This includes the fixings for the stays, the thick metal cables that run from mast to deck. Now, as the yacht rocks this way and that up against the reef, the stays flail in the wind, whipping with ferocity across the deck.

• 31:55John Hopkins?

  At the helm, Captain Deng is in imminent danger of serious injury. He tries to scurry to safety, but slips on the sodden floor. As he rises, a stay hits him full in the face. He's knocked instantly unconscious. Tom tries to reach him. He crawls on his belly to where the skipper is lying, face down in a deep pool of water.

• 32:19Speaker 02

  I remember seeing it happening and he just went out cold. And all I could do from that time was turn him over so at least his nose and his mouth were underwater. Dragged his limp body down three stairs down to the port side where we're offered a little bit of protection. Out of reach of these steel cables.

• 32:38John Hopkins?

  Without a captain, the yacht and all its crew are entirely at the mercy of Mother Nature.

• 32:47John Hopkins?

  Rather than sit and await his fate, Tom tries whatever he can to try to keep some sense of control. In a strange way, the desperation of the situation helps him to focus.

• 32:59Speaker 02

  I was scared, but I don't remember the fear of death. I think earlier when I had my moment of knocking knees, I was probably the most scared I'd been all day. But at that point, there were things to do. There were people to help.

• 33:12John Hopkins?

  The most immediate need of everyone on board is to escape the reach of the swinging steel cables, as well as the wind and the water that is still swamping the deck.

• 33:23John Hopkins?

  Options for a possible safe haven are limited. On the port side of the yacht is a small shower room. It's certainly not designed to accommodate 10 people, but in present circumstances it will have to do.

• 33:36Speaker 02

  I identified that as a place of relative safety, so left the captain in there, wedged against the toilet, crawled back up onto the stern of the vessel and encouraged the rest of the crew to come down. I got the engineer to hold the captain's head in his hands and keep his face out of the water.

• 33:52John Hopkins?

  With the crew now huddled together, Tom darts around the yacht, looking for something, anything to do that might prove useful.

• 34:01Speaker 02

  I'm a lot calmer when there's something to do and making myself busy was good for me. Got a handheld radio and naively put out on May Day, not knowing that the whole of the island had just been devastated by a typhoon. So there was no one going to answer that. I set off a flare just to make myself busy, but didn't really expect anyone to come and help us.

• 34:23Speaker 06

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• 34:42John Hopkins?

  After several hours, the wind begins to drop. Though still drumming down, the rain also eases a little. Just enough to afford Tom a glimpse of something in the distance. Mercifully, it's not another vessel steaming into them. It's a cluster of mangroves, a sure sign that the yacht is close to a shore.

• 35:06John Hopkins?

  Salvation is near, and yet still tantalizingly far away.

• 35:12John Hopkins?

  Through the rain, it's impossible to judge the exact distance to the mangroves. Perhaps he could dive into the water and swim to them. But that would mean leaving others behind. The captain is incapacitated, and several crew members can't swim.

• 35:27John Hopkins?

  After a while, Tom notices movement among the mangroves.

• 35:33John Hopkins?

  For a moment, his heart soars. A rescue party is on its way.

• 35:38John Hopkins?

  That's how it looks, at least. Until the long, lethal blades of their machetes come into focus.

• 35:46Speaker 02

  People started coming out the mangroves, and I immediately thought they were coming to help us. And then there were these whoops. They were very happy about something. And very quickly, I realized that they weren't coming to help us. They'd struck gold.

• 36:01John Hopkins?

  These are not rescuers. They're looters. After hours battling the elements, a new danger is bolting from the bushes.

• 36:12Speaker 02

  I don't know if it's the law in that region. It's certainly custom that anything that lands on the bit of reef that you own belongs to you. And yeah, whoever on that bit of reef had just received a million and a half dollars' worth of yacht. So I think they were quite pleased, and then they made their way out to the ship.

• 36:30John Hopkins?

  Tom races beneath deck, grabbing essentials that he needs to protect. His logbook, the crew's passports, and the contents of the safe. As he returns to the deck, he sees the looters wading through the water, gathering around a rope ladder hanging from the side of the boat.

• 36:48John Hopkins?

  One of the looters begins to climb. With adrenaline coursing through him, Tom attempts to ward them off, screaming at the top of his voice.

• 36:58John Hopkins?

  The looters hesitate, but only for a moment.

• 37:02Speaker 02

  It was completely futile. We were in a sorry state, and there were loads of them, and no interest in having a fight. There was no point in endangering people, trying to protect something that essentially wasn't ours.

• 37:18John Hopkins?

  Tom beckons the others to join him. One by one, the crew nervously descend the rope ladder.

• 37:25John Hopkins?

  The atmosphere is febrile, but the looters let them pass.

• 37:29Speaker 02

  I don't think they really had any violent intentions towards us. They just wanted the boat, and yeah, I did not want the boat. So we climbed down, we had to half-carry Captain down because he was in a really poor state. He had regained consciousness, but he wasn't coherent.

• 37:46John Hopkins?

  Groggy and unsteady on his feet, Captain Deng leans on his crew members for support. Ahead of them now is a kilometre-long trudge along the coral reef. The water laps at their chests. Progress is slow, slippery, often painful. They wade through the lapping waves over rocks and sharp coral.

• 38:10John Hopkins?

  Eventually, they make it to the mangroves and on to Wehno Island.

• 38:19John Hopkins?

  Once ashore, they're greeted by locals. Not looters this time, but kindly people who, despite having endured the ferocity of the typhoon themselves, are eager to help this band of lost souls emerging from the sea.

• 38:35John Hopkins?

  To Tom's relief, some of the people speak English. They offer to guide the survivors through the jungle to a local tourist resort.

• 38:43John Hopkins?

  The next leg of the journey to safety begins.

• 38:47John Hopkins?

  The effects of typhoon Maasak are all around them.

• 38:51John Hopkins?

  Broken trees and homes reduced to nothing.

• 38:55John Hopkins?

  Five people have lost their lives on these islands. Thousands have been made homeless and crops have been ruined. Rarely has the Chuk Lagoon experienced such destructive weather.

• 39:07Speaker 02

  We had no idea where we were on the island, but as we stepped ashore and sort of made our way through the mangroves, it became really clear what the typhoon had done to the island. There was trees, substantial, strong tropical trees which had been blown over. There was a group of guys there who were locals who spoke English. And those guys, they actually took us back to the path and started taking us to one of the resorts on the island. There's trees blown across the road. One of the guys had machete, had to cut a path at one point for us to get through. Our sort of bedraggled remains of the crew made our way back towards safety.

• 39:49John Hopkins?

  It's evening by the time they reach the resort.

• 39:53John Hopkins?

  Astonishingly, among the holidaymakers are some familiar faces.

• 39:58Speaker 02

  Our colleagues who'd been washed overboard earlier were there waiting for us. They were a bit scraped up, they'd been washed over the coral, they'd cut their legs and feet. But yeah, mostly unharmed.

• 40:10John Hopkins?

  Every last member of the crew is here, soaked, bruised and battered, yet somehow safe and sound.

• 40:18John Hopkins?

  Only now does the reality of what they've all been through begin to sink in. Tears come quickly as crew members embrace one another.

• 40:26Speaker 02

  We hooked our colleagues, two crew members, absolutely in hysterics, they broke down, I think they'd been holding it together really well all day.

• 40:34John Hopkins?

  In the immediate aftermath, Tom stays at the resort, recuperating physically and emotionally.

• 40:41Speaker 02

  The guests from the previous trip were actually being housed there as well, their flight had been cancelled. They bought all the crew dry clothes from the gift shop. We all had matching, sign-written t-shirts and stuff.

• 40:56John Hopkins?

  In fact, almost everything Tom owns has been lost, looted or ruined.

• 41:02John Hopkins?

  Yet, over the next couple of days, the atmosphere among the crewmates is not one of loss, but rather of relief and celebration.

• 41:11Speaker 02

  It was actually party time. We were elated, we were chuffed, we'd survived, we'd been through a real adventure together, and then we had a two-day party afterwards.

• 41:24John Hopkins?

  A few days later, Tom takes a boat out to the wreck. He surveys the damage, not only from the typhoon but from the looters as well.

• 41:33John Hopkins?

  Whatever has not been claimed by wind or water, the looters have destroyed or taken. The drinks cabinet has been drained dry, even the toilet pans have been stripped out.

• 41:44John Hopkins?

  But Tom doesn't actually hold any bitterness towards the perpetrators.

• 41:49Speaker 02

  I mean, we were robbed, but the people who did it had their whole lives wrecked. There was a few concrete buildings on the island, but the majority were corrugated iron houses, and there stood no chance in this wind, so the people had lost everything. They'd taken from us, but they'd lost a lot more than we had.

• 42:10John Hopkins?

  Tom and his employer attempt to salvage the remnants, but before they can bring the shell of the yacht back to the shore, the looters return for one final assault.

• 42:21John Hopkins?

  They torch the vessel. Like a floating beacon, it burns red-orange for hours out on the waves. A violent end for a boat that has already withstood extreme punishment.

• 42:37John Hopkins?

  In a way, it's the end of this particular road for Tom, too.

• 42:42Speaker 02

  I didn't know at the time that during the incident, I'd strained myself and got a hernia. I was really concerned. I was a commercial diver at this point, diving's my livelihood, it's a physical job, and I needed medical care for this hernia, and my insurance didn't cover me, so I had to travel back to the UK.

• 43:00John Hopkins?

  Back home, Typhoon Maisak gives Tom a new perspective on life.

• 43:06Speaker 02

  An eye-opener for safety. I was 28. I'd been abroad since I was 19, happy-go-lucky, just taking advantage of every opportunity that came up and had a real good time. A lot more could have gone wrong that day in truck. I think having that experience and knowing that things can go wrong very quickly makes you prepared.

• 43:29John Hopkins?

  Diving is still his passion as well as his occupation, yet his survival experience leads him into new areas with a special focus on supervising marine salvage projects.

• 43:42Speaker 02

  At that point, I'd made a decision to get a proper career and follow up my commercial diving. I'm now a dive supervisor who looks after other commercial divers in the water. Obviously, dive safety was always paramount to me and the safety of my customers and guests. But overall safety, I consider myself now a subject matter expert in legislation and the procedures to make diving and boating as safe as possible.

• 44:10John Hopkins?

  Tom's focus on safety in his work ultimately comes from a powerful insight about what happened in Chuck Lagoon in 2015, and the reason why, more than a decade later, he's still here to tell the tale.

• 44:22Speaker 02

  We're lucky. Captain did his absolute utmost to keep us safe as long as possible. If we'd have hit that reef earlier, we'd have had a lot longer pinned against it with those brutal winds than we actually did. But yeah, what kept us safe? Luck, mate, I think, yeah.

• 44:49John Hopkins?

  Next time on Real Survival Stories, an epic battle between man and beast in the wilderness of British Columbia. In July 2019, Colin Dowler is exploring the rugged natural beauty around the southwest coast of Canada. After a night camping in the forest, he's cycling home when an unexpected obstacle appears in the road up ahead. And so, a tense, terrifying, drawn-out encounter commences.

• 45:19John Hopkins?

  In the blink of an eye, Colin will find himself on the wrong side of an unfair fight, thrust into a deadly struggle against one of the animal kingdom's most powerful creatures. That's next time on Real Survival Stories. Listen right now without waiting and without ads by joining Noiser Plus.

• 45:36Speaker 06

  USAA knows dynamic duos can save the day, like superheroes and sidekicks, or auto and home insurance. With USAA, you can bundle your auto and home and save up to 10%. Tap the banner to learn more and get a quote at usaa.com/bundle. Restrictions apply.