Tsunami 26 Dec 04, Our story

I was awakened around 8 o'clock by the bed creaking for a long period, it seemed an earthquake far away.
I thought it was Kaishu who was awake, playing with the cats of the resort who usually sneaked into our house when the door was opened in the morning.
We had planned to go to one of the small islands for snorkling, but due to our badly burned skin we had decided to cancel it, and instead have a quiet day at the resort.

Receding water
At about 11, after a nice slow breakfast of pancakes, tea and fruits, we were ready for a swim.
Yuka said that low water was very early today and also quite extreme. The reef dried as a protective wall beyond the beach.

The first wave
I walked to the edge of the beach, when approx. 300m away a wall of water started to appear, curling white at the top.
The wave came rolling in and on its crest it carried a large fishing boat which had been anchored in deeper water outside the reef. It surfed towards the beach, bouncing on the coral reef. The sound of the rushing water was deafening. People were reacting very differently. Some were running away, others were just looking at each other. Yuka came running with the camera, and below the picture after the water receded.

Safe high ground
The plain where trees grew and on which the resort was built was elevated, and the beach sloped down to the reef from there. The edge was about 3 meters higher than the reef estimated based on the height mooring poles of fishing boats in reef openings.
The first 2 waves both reached the edge of the trees. Later we realized that these pretty big waves to have come up to the trees. It was then deep enough for the fishing boat to remain adrift and it passed just in front of us on the enormous strong current. When the water started to recede a few minutes later, some fishermen tied the boat frantically to a few palm trees. 2 other fishermen attempted to pull in their half sunken boats by swimming to the just visible 3 meter tall pole. The current sucked at their bodies, and they had to hold on to the mooring pole to prevent being sucked down, and otherwise surely would have drowned like so many people on other islands. All local women were screaming at them to get back to the beach. A fellow fisherman ran into the water with a rope around his waste, and reached the screaming men.

The big one
The current pulled many stuff from the beach along in the muddy water which normally was sparkling green. The water slowly receded and we were quite relieved that it hadn't come higher.
We started saving fishes which were left high and dry by the quickly receding water. It was fun for a while and we were surprised at another rumble in the distance. We righted ourselves and saw another much bigger wave rolling our way.
I yelled at Kaishu and Yuka to come with me and run. didn't understand why but I yelled at him again and he started following us. Such a good boy to listen and follow my instructions when it mattered most.
I looked back and seized the height of the wave. I estimated we would be safe once we reached our bungalow built on concrete poles with stone walls.

We ran for it while the others who stayed in wooden huts screamed at each other to run for the road. This road was 400 meters away and I thought it was too far.
We gathered all stuff outside and closed the door and window shutters and hoped for the best. While the water started entering underneath the door, I made a picture of the rushing water outside through the small window.

I hoped and prayed that the water wouldn't rise too much, and also that this would be the last wave!
We gathered our valuables in the small backpacks and learned to always have this ready at all times in the future. We pulled the bags from the floor to escape the muddy water.
The water stopped coming and I tried to recover the stuff we had to leave outside. As I didn't know what floated under the surface of the muddy water I waited to get down.

We were convinced the worst was over and now had more time to make pictures....

To the mountains
Once the water was low enough to wade through safely, we decided to get our small bags and try to find the others.
When we met them, they said the car was waiting to bring us to the mountains where we would stay until the all safe signal would be given.

We stayed with family of the resort owner with a group of 30 people from Germany, Austria, Sweden, New Zealand, Australia and some more countries, and several Thai families.
They took very well care of us. Some of us made trips back to the resort to get water and food. Some others took very well care of their own luggage while I was carrying huge bottles of water. very painful how selfish some people are. The worst and the best really does come out in people in these situations...

There were no casualties except for a dutch woman who already had an injury before the waves. She had had a hard time getting up the hill on her stilts and looked completely exhausted.
We had to sleep in the garden which was rock-hard. Kaishu loved this chance to camp out and so did the red ants. They made us move several times that night. The sting is so bad when you finally find the sleep on the hard rocks, and you had to strip of clothes to clear them out.

In the middle of the night the owner of the house drove his car down the mountain to return with an elder couple who thanked him profusely for saving them. The cool mountain wind made it nice for us. The other groups were sleeping behind the house, and were eaten alive by mosquitos. At least we could move away from the ants.....
The stars came out and we fell asleep looking at the Orion constellation, while Sirius kept us safe.

When I checked on the worst Tsunami I found it was 70 meters high, hit Russia's Kamchatka in 1737. I cannot imagine this. Same as a 18 story high appartment!