All divers saved after 40 hours

Together with seven of his friends, Ting went out to sea from Kenting near the southernmost tip of Taiwan for a couple of hours of scuba diving near Chihsingyen (Seven Stars Rock) Sunday morning.

When their time came to go home, the skipper of the yacht that had carried the eight to the reef in the Bashee Channel, separating Taiwan from Luzon of the Philippines, could not find them. Without them, the boat returned to port at 11:30 a.m., and the divers were reported missing.

“My thirst kept me going,” said Ting, who was finally able to reach shore on his own power at 10:30 p.m. Sunday night. A diving trainer, Ting was being washed north by the Kuroshio, or the Japan Current, from Seven Stars Rock, some 20 miles south of Oluanpi, for 36 hours before he came close to Tamali, near Taitung on the other side of southern Taiwan.

There is a lighthouse at Oluanpi, the southernmost tip of Taiwan. Almost exhausted, Ting swam ashore with whatever strength he could muster. Fortunately, Ting saw a night angler ashore.

“Help!” he cried.

Cheng Wen-cheng, the man who was trying to catch a big fish at night, heard him. Cheng thought he saw a ghost.

“Well,” Cheng told himself, “I have to look see.” With his help, Ting came ashore. Using Cheng’s cellphone, the diving trainer called for help for the rest of his team.

Help came right away. With Ting’s help, the Coast Guard search-and-rescue workers, who had failed to locate them for nearly two days, had a better idea where to find the seven other scuba divers.

“We combed the seas for hours and hours and we couldn’t find them,” said a search-and-rescue helicopter pilot. Rescuers searched waters near the reef, which may pose danger to divers when the tide changes, but they weren’t at the right place.

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