MARCH 22nd 2010 in MAZUNTE, MEXICO

Mazunte beach, Oaxaca

If you speak to anyone who has been to Mazunte this past week, they might tell you about a girl who nearly drowned or even about a girl who did drown in the sea. That was me. On Tuesday 22nd March 2010, I was walking along some rocks on a cliff edge with three friends. The waves of the sea beneath me were ferocious but they were way, way beneath me. And just as I was thinking that the view was possibly the most incredible sight I had ever seen in my life, a rogue wave came out of nowhere at least 10meters higher than the others, slammed against the cliffside and picked me up from the rocks and took me down. I was dragged along the rocks, coral and sea urchins before plunging in to sea where it took over an hour and a half for a lifeboat to rescue me. I nearly died. But because I didn´t, I came alive. I really want to share this story with you.

I arrived on Monday 21st March in Mazunte with a bunch of super awesome people who I had met in Puerto Escondido and had been chilling with for over a week. Since I got to Mexico I had been excited about Mazunte. All the best travellers I had met along the way had raved about Mazunte, how beautiful the beach is, how clear the sea is and the generally good vibes of the place. And Mazunte did not disappoint. It is stunning and it pulsates with a spiritual energy. Our first evening, for example, we walked to Punta Cometa to watch the sun set where a bunch of people - travellers and locals - were making a party of drumming and African dancing to celebrate the Equinox. It was so great and I felt very happy and excited to be there.

And Tuesday 22nd March was no different. I awoke feeling very happy. Yesterday I rewatched some footage that I shot that morning of the beach and of myself describing how intensely happy I felt, how emotional and overwhelmed I was to be in Mazunte and how I felt like I wanted to be there forever. I fell in love with the beach there instantly. So later, after sending a routine email to my family telling them I am good and I loved them, I went for a walk with four of my friends, Marley, Olivier, Sinah and Galen, to Punta Cometa again where the view is sensational. Here the boys clambered over the rocks whereas Sinah and I just sat on the cliff itself watching the sea. Both of us were so humbled by the enormity of the beauty before us. After some time Galen left, he had to leave Mazunte to go back to D.F. so we all said our goodbyes and Marley left too but only to bring back some water for us. So Sinah, Olivier and myself began exploring the rocks.

Me and Sinah on Punta Cometa

It was an incredible walk, the world was really sparkling. And then I sat on the side of a rock looking down at the far-below sea, the waves smashing against the side of the cliff beneath me. I was safe. The waves were very far down and the highest wave I had seen was still crashing against the cliff at a distance. I looked around and thought that this sight was possibly the most beautiful thing I had ever seen in my life. And then I heard Sinah call ¨Marley!¨ as Marley came in to view above us carrying the water. I looked up and repeated his name. Just then I saw the coming wave, a rogue freak wave, rise up and up and up and up tsunami-like as it crashed, well above my head on the cliffside. Screaming, I tried to hold on the rocks but the force of the wave kept dragging me away from the rocks and pulling me down and down in to the sea. Here I plunged in deep and scratched my body on coral and sea urchins below the rocks and forced my way up and out of the water to get some air.

As I gasped for air, I looked up and saw Marley, Sinah and Olivier´s panicked and desperate faces screaming at me, far above me and out of reach. It was more intense than a scene from a movie. I didn´t know what to do or where to go. When I swam nearer to the rocks the waves slammed me against them but if I swam away from the cliffside, I would be further out at sea and more isolated. The nearest beach was really far. I saw Marley running to get help. We were about 20mins walk away from anything/ anyone. Olivier and Sinah kept shouting things at me ¨Don´t swim too much, conserve your energy!¨, ¨Just float on your back¨, ¨Just stay above water, keep breathing!¨ I was desperate. I had no idea. They had no idea. I was weak. I was injured. I was bleeding. I was exhausted. My body ached all over. I was lost. I just had to keep staying afloat.

For the next hour to hour and a half, I was there on the ferocious sea attempting to stay afloat. Waiting. When I tried to swim in one direction, the waves would take me either towards rocky cliff edge or pull me out further to sea. When I tried floating on my back the waves were too high they would crash over my face and I would swallow water, which I knew was not at all good for survival. My body was so weak, all I could do was tread water and wait for help. Wait for the boat to come and rescue me. Surely it would come soon. No?

Sinah, pointing out the high waves pre-fall

I could see Sinah and Olivier on the cliff side, they kept talking to me, shouting things at me. They kept promising me there was a boat coming, that Marley had gone to find help and I just needed to stay there for a bit longer and I would be rescued. But I could see the fear in their eyes when they talked to me. I could hear the hesitation in their voices. They didn´t know if there would be a boat coming, Mazunte beach only has a volunteer lifeguard system and that was 20mins away. They later told me that they thought that they would have to witness me drowning in front of them. I could see more and more people accumulate on the Punta, to watch the sun set. More people were getting hysterical, shouting things at me, shouting encouragement. Noone wants to see a girl die. Some of them I could see their sillhouettes as they walked up the cliff edge, then spotted me in the sea, their hands would lift in despair at either side of their heads and then they would run back down the hill to try to get help from Mazunte, I assumed.

But it often all seemed in vain. There was no boat. For the hour or so I was on the sea, there was NO BOAT. There were no boats in Mazunte beach, nothing could help me. In the sea, I was exhausted. My body was exhausted after five minutes of being in the ocean, but my mind kept me alive. The reason I wish to share this experience is because despite it having been the scariest fucking thing I have ever been through, I feel intensely lucky and can only see it as overall as having been a positive experience. My mind was able to think in ways it has never explored before. For a whole hour, I had my very own existential crisis. In many ways, I died in that hour. My mind thought a million different thoughts, saw the world and my situation from a hundred bizarre angles and I was constantly fighting myself, the sea, the world in general, survival and death. It was utterly phenomenal and I am going to try explain the best way I can.

When I was on the sea, I straddled LIFE and DEATH. My mind battled with itself and with my body to the extreme. Luckily, fighting LIFE´s corner were several factors. First and foremost were thoughts of my family. My Mum, my Dad, Daniel and Maria. My core pillars of strength in this world, the reason I can never feel alone. The reason I am one of the luckiest people alive. I fucking love my family so much that I was crying my heart out on the sea whenever I thought about them. I cannot leave them and I could not let them mourn over me. Not like this, not so suddenly. I did not want to stop being a part of my family. So I fought for them. I struggled against the waves crashing on me, for them. I also thought about all my favourite people I had met in my life. At school growing up, in Malaysia, in university, in London, whilst travelling over the world. All these fantastic human beings that I feel blessed to call my friends. These strong, interesting, interested, beautiful beautiful people. Many of whom I have thought about so much whilst away on this trip and remembered why I fell in love with them as friends in the first place. People I am so lucky to know. I did not want to leave them. I wanted to stay with them and explore more of the world with them and how it works and ourselves. Not ready to say goodbye.

Marley my hero, carefree before my fall

The next thing that kept me going were my friends shouting at me and talking to me and encouraging me and seeing the speed at which Marley mobilised himself and ran to get help. THEY KEPT ME ALIVE. These friends who I had only met in the last week or so kept me the FUCK ALIVE. They gave so much of a shit and I could hear it in their voices and see it in their eyes when they looked at me when I was in the water. They shouted that they loved me, that they couldn´t lose me, they kept encouraging me to keep up my energy and that it would be worth it. They made me believe so intensely that my life was worth struggling to save. It was heartbreaking. And in the same way that they didn´t want to see their new friend die before them, I did not want them to have to see that. Several times my mind would dive inside the heads of one of my friends. I´d try and think like Olivier was thinking, he kept shouting at me to relax and sometimes even to enjoy the experience. A strange suggestion you might think but possibly one of the best for me. What else could I do?! I had to stay afloat until (and IF) a boat comes along. The more I stressed and panicked the harder it was to stay above the water. When I relaxed and breathed properly, I was calm and found it easier. I imagined being in Olivier´s head and telling him to keep talking to me and not to give up on me. Keep giving me a reason to struggle. Then I´d dip into sweet Sinah´s head and feel very upset as I could see how utterly distressed she was. I wanted to tell her to be calm and not get too upset just yet, I am still here. And then my favourite would be to imagine getting inside Marley´s head. Keep running, Marley. Get me that boat. I believe in you and trust you and know you can do it. It was quite odd that later, Marley said he felt like he could hear my thoughts on the sea too and was trying to communicate with me to hold on and be strong.

Sometimes I would get in the heads of the strangers that had accumulated. That wasn´t fun. To see a strange girl drown before them. I didn´t want these people to have to see it. Painful for them to watch but still, to them, I am nothing. Sinah, Marley and Olivier were the only close people to me there but I had only known them a week. On the sea, I felt like I had known them my whole life. They were the most familiar thing to me in the whole situation. I was so detached from everything and everyone else. That would easily make me a statistic. Just a horror story. Be careful if you´re near Punta Cometa, a girl drowned there last week. I did NOT want to be that girl. I am more than that. Another one of my saving graces - my PRIDE. I did not want to be the pathetic girl that drowned in front of this audience. No. I was stronger. My friends were shouting how proud they are of me for how long I was going and I wanted to make them prouder. I was going to be the survival story that people would talk about for weeks. Hand in hand with my pride, was my ego. I am too fucking great to die right now. This is exactly what I thought. I enjoy life far too much, I am a happy person, I am a good person and I get a hell of a lot of a life so this CANNOT be it.

PLUS, the world is too fucking beautiful. I am amazed and in awe and impressed by nearly everywhere I go. Certainly on this trip so far. I did not feel ready to leave this planet and all its wonder. I looked at the sea, the rocks, the sun, my friends and my nothing-body in the middle of it all and yet I was seeing everything as one. I spoke to the sea animals, to the birds, to the sea, to the rocks, to my friends minds, to my family and friends the world over. I reached out to everything. I have always felt concerned with LIVING IN THE MOMENT and not being distracted but I can honestly say that I dont think I have ever lived more in the moment than for that time I was floating, struggling to stay alive in the middle of the sea. It felt like a spiritual awakening was taking place in my mind, body and soul over the course of that hour and it would be an awful waste if I could not put that in to practise and explore it further. I was experiencing a change in my own consciousness and it was liberating and wonderful and incredible and I could not let that go.

The waves would come near the cliffside

I have just had to stop, walk outside the internet cafe and have a cigarette. I feel very faint exploring this again. I cannot quite explain to the full extent how my mind was thinking. This is very emotional for me. Before the accident, I was talking to Olivier about how I believe that words are often a waste as experience and emotions and thoughts are infinite whereas words are limited. They are generic labels for feelings and thoughts that we THINK we share. The best thing we can experience with other people is silence as instead of talking and disturbing communication, we can tune in to each others energies and understand each other better in that way. Anything someone tries to describe is therefore reduced to familiarities that other people can then try to empathise with. I don´t think that unless you have had a similar experience that it is really possible for me to explain the places my mind reached when I was on the sea. If you are reading this and we are still good enough friends to meet then maybe I can try communicate it in person to you rather than through written text. But whatever, I still think it is important that I try to share my experience as best I can now. If you are reading this, even if we are not that good friends, we must have touched each other´s lives in SOME way to have made enough of an impression to have warranted a ¨facebook friend request¨ haha so I still want to share this with you. I believe now more than ever that nearly all interactions should be as meaningful as that interaction can possibly be. This is my meaningful interaction with you.

The final thought that fought for my life was my own strength of mind and how the BOAT WAS COMING and that all I had to do was HOLD ON because it DEFINITELY WOULD COME. This was my biggest battle possibly. I believed in my own strength of mind most of the time and so long as I thought the boat was coming and my friends or the other spectators were encouraging me in this vein, then all I had to do was hold on. And yes, I could fucking do that. All they needed me to do was stay calm, be patient and HOLD THE FUCK ON and I would be rescued. Easy.

...And then crash up high violently against the cliff

Or not so, as this was where Death toyed with and teased Life like a violent bully. As time went on, I became increasingly aware that there was NO BOAT. I would look around me and there was no safety net. There was nothing. Just more endless expanses of violent sea that had battered and isolated me so far. Nothing to cling to. No security blanket. I ONLY HAD MYSELF. The odd occassion when I would muster enough energy to scream at everyone watching ¨WHERE´S THE BOAT?!¨, sometimes there was no reply. This was because I was getting further and further away and their figures were becoming smaller and smaller which made me think that they could not hear me. Which worried and scared me. I was becoming less of a real person and more of just that-girl-drowning-in-the-sea. Or they stopped replying because they didn´t know. They wanted to stop giving me false hopes. They wanted to stop lying to me. They themselves were becoming desperate for my chance of survival. But this was the most difficult. When people stop shouting things at me, that´s when I felt like less of a person. Less of Anetta and more of an ex-Anetta. This was when I felt like people were beginning to say goodbye. That I was a lost case. They had made peace with my death and now I had to aswell. There was no boat. Mazunte had no boats. There was no way of me being saved. I had been on the sea for what felt like forever and maybe I should stop struggling. My body was exhausted. I kept swallowing water and choking. Water was in my eyes. I was bleeding. Mazunte is known for bull sharks. We had seen whales (?) when we were looking over the cliff at about the same spot I was now floating. I am probably not one of those survivor type people who can outlive these experiences. These could be my last minutes alive and I would have spent them struggling and sputtering and with false expectations and hopes. Maybe I should just enjoy my own beautiful death.

It sounds warped but your mind works in curious ways when you think you are dying. I looked around me and it was so beautiful. Mazunte. The sea all around me. So enormous and expansive. And only me, little me, in the middle. Being engulfed. Disturbing its pattern. It was so beautiful and maybe I should just let it swallow me. There are worse places and ways to die. The sea looked silver from the sun, the waves were so high and smooth and surreal. I could feel things occassionally swimming past my feet. The sun was so warm and comforting and I had never felt so happy in all my life as I did that morning. Maybe it was my time. Maybe God was being kind. It was the perfect place to die. Occassionally these thoughts would overtake everything else and I would just kind of lie on my back in exhaustion and my head would roll back and I would let myself be sucked in by the sea and imagine dying this romantic death.

Me, about 20mins before I fell in to the Pacific

But then I couldn´t. And whenever my mind rocked towards Death, Life would always kick me up the ass again and force me to think that the BOAT IS COMING. I think that about after a half hour of constant back-and-forth between my life/death, I found my perfect survival equilibrium. This sustained me for the next hour or so. It involved me deciding to delude myself that there IS A BOAT COMING to save me but instead of struggling and sputtering and fighting for survival, I was able to surf this calm, peaceful dimension of existence whereby as I had decided there is a boat coming all I had to do was hold on. But because where I was at that point in time was so fucking beautiful, I had to try and enjoy it. And if a boat never came then at least I fucking tried but fucking enjoyed it at the same time. I liberated my mind from earthly worries and let nature and the sea take care of me. I had no more energy but the sea just lifted me here and there and I just held on, not fighting the sea, only fighting my mind. When my mind was in this place, it was beautiful and was able to existentially analyse its own existence. Occasionally it would dip in to dark thoughts and then I would bring it back to the happy place. I had never felt so proud of myself.

And then I drifted a bit away from the spectators and it was just me and the sea for some time. And then I heard someone shouting. To my left. And then I saw someone in the water swimming towards me with a floating aid. With a speedboat following behind him. Everything changed in that instant. It was no longer just me v the world. I had someone on my side. I HAD A BOAT. When the floating aid was handed to me, I fainted on it. I was utterly exhausted. I could not breathe anymore. I could not swim anymore. I had no more mind power. I was so weak. I was hoisted on to the boat and driven for another 10mins on the sea until we reached shore. In those 10minutes I was so lightheaded. My blood was going everywhere in the boat. The voluntary lifeguard who had swam to me held me as I shook ferociously and then became deadly still in varying extremes of shock. I was confused. And yet I WAS FUCKING ALIVE. I couldn´t believe it. There were so many times out on the sea that I had given up on me and I know that the people around had too. And yet I was FUCKING ALIVE. I had never felt so FUCKING ALIVE. I tried to breathe deeply.

We reached the shore and lots of young confused Mexicans crowded my figure on the beach. I was confused. People asked me questions in Spanish. And English hippie offered me herbs for my wounds. Where do you want to go now? They ASKED ME. Would I not just be taken somewhere? I couldn´t think. I walked away from everyone and took a second to sit on a log on the beach and just BREATHE. Air without the chance of swallowing seawater. It felt beautiful. I could feel the adrenaline pumping out of my eyes. There is no hospital or doctors in Mazunte so my bleeding, ripped body was lain on the back of a motorcycle and driven to a nearby house where a man bandaged me. Sinah, Olivier and Marley had run to be with me. We were all crying and shaking and confused and relieved. I couldn´t help laugh and make jokes. It was so surreal. I was FUCKING ALIVE. My wounds were cleaned and bandaged. I chainsmoked. My friends hugged and cried with me. Then Olivier carried me back to our hostel La Isla. I couldn´t walk. And this was where we noticed the hundreds of excrutiatingly painful spines from coral and sea urchins that had lodged deep in both my feet.

I fell off the other side of this in to the ocean

My treatment thereafter the accident is another story which I will perhaps write tomorrow. Healing - physically and psychologically - from such an experience is a huge task and one that I am five days in to. Today was the first day I could walk (made it to the internet cafe!) although I still look like a zombie granny, balancing only on my tip toes as the heels of my feet are still raw. Marley does an excellent impression of my hobble. My friends here have been incredibly kind in helping me, I have been really overwhelmed.

If you have got this far, thank you for reading. I really wanted to share the mind struggle that I was able to experience with you as not only was it strange and unique but also because you probably played some part in my survival and I am grateful. I don´t know exactly how yet it has changed me but I know that it has. It separated the important from the unimportant. People and love are important. Pretentiousness and facades are not. The experience was easily the most important and incredible and insane and scary and strange and weird and yet beautiful experience of my life to date. The reason I say beautiful and I am able to see it in a positive light is because I feel like it woke up something inside of me. I am sure I will explore this more later. I am looking forward to healing physically because I think once that is out of the way I will find it easier to heal psychologically and explore the existential questions that I was presented.

I love you all,
Anetta xxx