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Aurimas Mockus finally made it to Australia, but not in the manner he imagined.
Instead of triumphantly paddling in on the Kursis, the one-seater boat he’d been rowing for nearly five months across the Pacific Ocean as part of a solo mission from San Diego to Brisbane, he arrived in Sydney Harbour, relieved and alive, onboard a 16,000 tonne Australian naval ship.
Had it not been for Tropical Cyclone Alfred, he likely would have completed the 12,000km journey, and joined just a handful of people to have rowed across the Pacific solo.
But Alfred, which was directly in the path of the Lithuanian rower, thwarted him. Monster seas hit the Kursis, causing it to roll over and over again and again. For three days, he could not rest or sleep as he battled giant waves, in a boat constantly filling with seawater and all communication with his support team lost.
“I was like a cat in a washing machine,” he told reporters at the HMAS Kuttabul naval base in Potts Point, just east of Sydney’s CBD, on Friday morning after disembarking from HMAS Choules and finally, after nearly five months at sea, touching dry land.
More seriously, he said, his voice breaking, he knows he was very close to death.
As his boat flipped again and again in giant seas, he focused his energy on keeping the promise to his wife and teenage children when he embarked on the journey last year: that he would return to them.
“[I was] rolling maybe 30 times, I’m not counting them, maybe more. Many times [I thought] may be last time,” he said.
“These last three days in the ocean … I have to – many times, many hours – fight [for] my life, because … my boat is sinking; all navigation … stops, I just have VHF radio, I have problems in my body. I feel like, if I lost my mind, if I lost my belief [that] I can fight for my life, I [would not be here] together with you today.
“Now I know … hell is not … hot, it’s actually wet and very strong winds.”
Mockus’s wife, Sonata Mockuviene, was at the naval base in Sydney waiting to greet her husband, whom she had not seen since he set off from San Diego on the US west coast in mid-October. She flew in to Australia from Lithuania on Thursday.
‘We were worried, it was too long’
After walking down the gangway from the ship, Mockus fell to his knees in front of his wife and, sobbing, buried his face in her stomach, as she hugged his head and kissed him.
Mockuviene said the rowing trip was not the craziest thing her husband had ever done, but it was the “longest crazy” he had attempted.
She was in almost daily contact with him throughout the journey, receiving a message or short phone call to hear that he was safe and well. But last week the communications stopped.
“When he missed all the connections, we did not have any information, we were worried, it was too long … not getting the message from him,” she said.
Then, at about 10pm on Friday 28 February, Mockus activated his emergency SOS beacon, transmitting a signal to a satellite that bounced to a 24/7 response centre in Canberra, and setting off a chain of action that would eventually lead to his dramatic rescue from cyclone-battered high seas by HMAS Choules.
“As you can imagine, it’s no small task finding an object that small in the middle of our ocean,” said Mark Morrow, the executive director of response for the Australian Maritime Safety Authority (Amsa), which coordinated the search for Mockus.
Adding to the difficulty was the cyclone, which was producing winds in excess of 130km/h and heavy seas in excess of nine metres.
“Normally, we would be in a position where we could divert a vessel to assist us,” said Kevin McEvoy, the Amsa response centre manager. But TC Alfred meant that there were no ships in the area. “We didn’t have that luxury.”
Mockus was eventually spotted by a Challenger aircraft.
Amsa was able to make radio contact with Mockus, using a Lithuanian translator, whom Mockus thanked emotionally on Friday. The team made six flights over three days, maintaining contact with him.
Mockus’s voice broke as he recounted seeing the aircraft above him for the first time.
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“I thought I am not alone. But how he can help, I don’t know.”
HMAS Choules was deployed from Brisbane and Mockus was rescued on Monday.
“I don’t have words for this,” Mockus said, when asked how he felt to see the Royal Australian Navy vessel coming to his aid. “Just love.”
Their journey back to Sydney was fraught.
HMAS Choules encountered 12-metre seas and was pitched on 28 degree rolls – or a 90ft roll from one side to the other – causing some damage to equipment onboard the ship, including sending hospital beds through bulkheads, though no one was injured.
Mockus said that after being brought aboard HMAS Choules and being checked by medical staff – he has some cuts and bruises from being thrown around in the savage conditions, but nothing serious or life-threatening – he was just focused on getting horizontal.
“When I’m sinking, I’m thinking about a clear bed, because three, four days, I spent in the wet and rolling sea.”
Elation
An elated Darius Degutis, the Lithuanian ambassador to Australia, thanked the Australian government, defence force and people for the rescue.
“It’s a very special day, because we have Aurimas. We have a saying in Lithuanian language, sveikas ir gyvas, healthy and alive. He is healthy and alive.”
Degutis read aloud a letter from the foreign minister of Lithuania thanking Australia for rescuing the rower.
“Lithuania is profoundly grateful to your unwavering commitment to saving lives and we will always remember this extraordinary act of solidarity and cooperation,” the letter said.
For now, Mockus and his wife will spend some time in Australia before returning to their children in Lithuania.
Mockus said he had no regrets about the trip. But asked if he would be attempting it again, to see if he can complete the voyage, he laughed. “Not yet,” he said.
When Mockuviene was asked if she would approve of his husband trying again, she said it was out of her hands.
“I cannot keep him … at the house. It’s impossible.”
Additional reporting by Daisy Dumas
