Australian surfers relieved but search for Indonesian man goes on
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Nias, Indonesia: The search for an Indonesian man lost at sea as four Australian tourists were rescued will continue until at least Monday, with crews refusing to give up hope as they scour the coastline of Sumatra.
Australians Elliot Foote, his partner Steph Weisse and their friends Jordan Short and Will Teagle were found floating in waters off the remote Banyak Islands on Tuesday morning, having survived 36 hours on their surfboards after the wooden longboat they were travelling on began to take in water in the storm.
The Australians, the boat captain and those who helped rescue them on Pinang Island on Wednesday.
The four were taken to join their eight other friends at the small surf retreat they had booked out on nearby Pinang Island, and they remained there on Wednesday morning, joined by Australian catamaran skipper Grant Richardson, who played a key role in the search, and Mohammad Iqbal, the captain of the boat the Australian quartet were on.
But while there was enormous relief they were saved, along with Iqbal and the resort manager Junardi Akhmad, there is great concern for the third member of the Indonesian boat crew, who remains unaccounted for.
Fifan Marongo was washed away in the current on Monday and has not been seen since.
Marongo, in his early 20s, is from Banyak Island, the largest of the group of islands to which the party of 12 Australian friends had come to celebrate Foote’s 30th birthday.
Missing Indonesian crew member Fifan Marongo.Credit: Instagram
The capsized boat was spotted by a privately chartered plane on Tuesday.
“Obviously we hope he is safe, maybe stranded in one of the islands,” said Tonggor Gultom, an official in Nias with Basarnas, the Indonesian National Search and Rescue Agency.
“We predict that he is washed to the western side of Sumatra, probably the waters of Aceh Singkil and Sibolga, and we are focusing our search operations there today.
“We continue the search until Monday. After that we will evaluate the operation, whether or not it should be continued. Our standard operating procedure is to launch search and rescue operation for a week, after that make the decision if it should be extended or not.”
The boat had departed with a second vessel carrying the other eight Australians, which made it to Pinang Island after taking shelter behind another island in the rough weather.
Gultom said they had left from an unauthorised port in north Nias called Tuhemberua. There was footage on Instagram on Wednesday morning of them boarding the wooden boat at the port on Sunday, but it was quickly deleted.
“As far as I know there are no good boats [to travel in]. Tourists use that kind of wooden boat,” he said. “I started working here by the end of 2017. In 2018 we did similar rescue operations for two German tourists who wanted to go to Banyak Island.”
Weisse’s mother told Nine’s Today program on Wednesday that she and her husband Wayne had feared the worst before the 31-year-old and the other three Australians were discovered.
“The phones just didn’t stop and then I heard Wayne scream upstairs and I thought, ‘Oh my god someone’s rung to tell us bad news,’” she said.
“Then I heard him laughing and saying ‘Hey Steph’ and it was just the most unbelievable feeling.
“I really was preparing myself for the worst, so to hear her voice, crackly as it was and she sounded very tired, but we knew she was OK.”
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