Timothy Shaddock, the Australian who spent months adrift in the Pacific Ocean before being rescued by a Mexican tuna vessel, before an interview in Manzanillo, Mexico, Wednesday, July 19, 2023. Shaddock and his dog set out on a catamaran from northwestern Mexico in late April, he said, with the idea of sailing to French Polynesia, but after a week’s journey, a storm disabled their catamaran and left him without electronics and without a kitchen. They survived by eating raw fish and rainwater. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano) Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
In this photo provided by Grupomar/Atun Tuny, Australian Tim Shaddock has his blood pressure taken after being rescued by a Mexican tuna vessel in international waters in the Pacific, after he drifted with his dog for three months. (Grupomar/Atun Tuny via AP)
The crew of the Mexican tuna boat Maria Delia pose for photos with Bella, Australian Timothy Lyndsay Shaddock’s dog, both rescued from a damaged catamaran in the Pacific Ocean, upon arrival at the port of Manzanillo, Mexico, Tuesday, July 18, 2023. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano) Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
Australian Timothy Lyndsay Shaddock gets off the tuna boat María Delia that rescued him and his dog Bella, in the port of Manzanillo, Mexico, Tuesday, July 18, 2023. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano) Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
Australian Timothy Lyndsay Shaddock smiles during a welcome ceremony for the Grupomar company after being rescued from the sea and arriving at the port in Manzanillo, Mexico, Tuesday, July 18, 2023. Shaddock and his dog were adrift for three months on a catamaran before being rescued by the tuna vessel María Delia, owned by Grupomar. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano) Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
In this photo provided by Grupomar/Atun Tuny, Australian Tim Shaddock sits with his dog Bella after being rescued by a Mexican tuna vessel in international waters in the Pacific, after he drifted with Bella on his damaged catamaran for three months. (Grupomar/Atun Tuny via AP)
Australian Timothy Lyndsay Shaddock, who drifted at sea for three months, arriving in Manzanillo, Mexico, on July 18, 2023. (AP Photo / Fernando Llano) Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
Timothy Lyndsay Shaddock, 54, bought a small catamaran two years ago in the touristy city of Puerto Vallarta, partly because he needed a place to live — and the boat had “sea views,” he joked — but also because he wanted to sail to French Polynesia on his own.
“Of course, living on a ship and sailing on a ship are two different things; that was much more of a challenge,” he acknowledged in an interview with the AP the day after he returned to the mainland Tuesday in the Mexican port of Manzanillo, bearded and skinny but unable to stop smiling and full of gratitude to those who saved his life.
“You learn about your body, what you can carry, how much you can sleep… what has broken down in the boat, how much food you need, how much gasoline… and then you go out again, see what happens, write it down and get stronger with each trip.”
Shaddock was aware that his time window was narrowing. He was clear that he needed to get out before hurricane season and the end of April was approaching. “It was either now or I couldn’t afford to wait another year.”
When he jumped into the sea, he never knew if this would be the beginning of the great voyage or if he would have to return. But “there’s a moment when you leave and most likely you won’t stop anymore,” he explained.
“I remember that day very well because when I reached the Pacific, the wind and the current carried me… and you can’t go back.”
Shaddock wanted to feel alone “out there, it’s part of the journey.” But he wasn’t.
When he arrived in Mexico, in June 2020 and in the midst of a pandemic, he lived for a year in San Miguel de Allende, a colonial city in the center of the country where he met Bella, a brown and black street dog who no longer wanted to be separated from him.
She followed him everywhere, even when he jumped into the sea or the times he tried to find a home thinking that the boat would not be the most suitable for her. “But she said ‘No, I want to go on that trip,'” says the Australian.
The first weeks sailing, with the wind in favor and the catamaran full of provisions, radio, computer and even croquettes for Bella, Shaddock enjoyed the sea. He doesn’t forget the night he stopped seeing the coast at the beginning of May, even though the dates dance a bit for him. “He was amazed at how the boat was moving, he felt so good, sailing under the moon in the perfect direction.”
But soon the storm came. The current changed direction and he lost control of the catamaran. “Suddenly you are adrift, moving in circles, the wind changing all the time, the waves moving in many directions; It’s hypnotic, like you’re in a whirlpool, it’s another world.”
Shaddock was looking at the map on his computer. “When you see that you are going backwards, you realize that you are in trouble.”
The nightmare had just begun. The storm disabled her boat, left him without electronics, without a sail, without a kitchen. The days became a succession of days in which she had to draw strength from weakness to fix everything that was broken, to collect rainwater, to catch everything possible.
He was overwhelmed by the thought of what would happen if the next day he was overpowered by fatigue while he realized that his situation was increasingly critical.
Shaddock said that he tried to find happiness within himself by meditating, jumping into the water and, of course, with Bella. His traveling companion encouraged him to keep going, he said. He also vented writing. “I tried recording on those machines but… a piece of paper is more tangible… you don’t have to turn it on and it’s not electronic.”
He thought he would die on that journey until the sound of the helicopter from the tuna boat that was looking for schools saw him. He felt revived. The pilot Andrés Zamorano, the first person he spoke to and who became his closest friend, believes that Shaddock made it his task to care for and feed Bella more than himself and that this moral obligation helped him survive.
With her he shared raw fish. When he lost the harpoon and it was difficult to fish, he hunted the birds that landed on the boat.
On July 12, they rescued him almost 2,000 kilometers from the coast and on the dilapidated catamaran there were only cans of sardines and croquettes for Bella, Zamorano said.
A very skinny Shaddock and a dog almost fatter than its owner, the pilot joked, were received on the deck of the Maria Delia with the affection and solidarity that the Australian only attributes to seafarers. Captain Óscar Meza offered him first aid. The sailors took care of the sores on Bella’s feet.
Gradually Shaddock’s health, at first very poor, improved with a better diet. “He would go up to the bridge every day at the time he wanted and we would have a cup of coffee, we would talk,” Meza recalled. Meanwhile, the dog became the darling of the ship.
The tuna boat found a huge school of fish two days after the rescue with which he filled the hold and returned. “Seeing the dolphins when they try to catch the tuna… You feel their magic, the magic of freedom, the truth of why we are alive,” Shaddock commented, recalling the scene.
Upon stepping on dry land on Tuesday, he embraced Antonio Suárez, president of the company that owns the tuna boat, a veteran businessman who said he was struck by the Australian’s gaze: blue eyes full of life. He entertained him with banquets during the week and adopted him as his closest and newest friend. She still affectionately speaks of him as “our castaway.”
Bella disembarked after Shaddock with the new owner that the Australian had chosen: a Sinaloan in charge of the boat’s small launch and a great lover of animals. “She’s braver than me, that’s for sure,” she said by way of parting tribute.
When asked about the reasons for parting with the dog, he replied: “The Australian embassy made the decision for me.” The laws for traveling with animals there and for them to be accepted are very strict.
Happy and grateful to his saviors, exhausted from dealing with the press or people who ask him for photos and look at him like a living miracle, he ended the week trying to find even a few minutes to be alone again.
Theoretically, his plans are to return to Australia where his parents, his sister and his daughter are, who, he said with a laugh, wants to come to Mexico to look for him and “maybe” take him home.
FOUNTAIN: Associated Press
