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When Timothy Shaddock quit his corporate job and moved to Mexico to pursue his dream of sailing solo across the oceans, he probably didn’t realise what the big blue had in store for him.

The 54-year-old Australian sailor says he can’t recall the exact date that he set out of the Sea of Cortez and into the Pacific Ocean on his grand adventure, but it must have been early May under a full moon.

“Once you hit the Pacific, the wind and the current is behind you, it’s one-way, you cannot come back”, he noted, per The Guardian.

“It was very good sailing on that full moon,” he said. “The boat was moving fast. It was a clear night. The winds were strong. I was amazed how the boat moved and it felt so good to sail under that moon and perfect direction. It was so easy to make the decision. I wanted to keep sailing.”

Shaddock arrived in Mexico at the beginning of the pandemic in June 2020, which is when he met the companion that would come to save his life – Bella, a black and brown stray dog:

“Bella sort of found me in the middle of Mexico. She’s Mexican,” he explained. “She’s the spirit of the middle of the country and she wouldn’t let me go. I tried to find a home for her three times and she just kept following me onto the water. She’s a lot braver than I am, that’s for sure.”

Things took a turn for the worse when they were out at sea together, with a storm changing everything in a matter of minutes:

“The current changes direction. So if you’re drifting you’re suddenly drifting in a circle. And the wind, it’s changing all the time,” Shaddock said. “The waves are moving in many directions and it’s hypnotising. You sort of suddenly feel like you’re in a whirlpool.”

That’s when Shaddock lost all of his electronics, including navigational equipment, and his ability to cook food. His days then became about pure survival; fixing things on the boat, fishing, and capturing rainwater.

The weathered sailor said that he found comfort in meditation, swimming in the ocean and writing in a journal, but most of all, his moral obligation to keep Bella alive gave him added purpose. The two subsisted on raw fish and rainwater.

Andrés Zamorano, the helicopter pilot who was the first to spot the pair floating in the middle of the ocean, said he believed that this was precisely why Shaddock was able to survive a gruelling three months at sea.

Zamorano had spotted the castaways on July 12 from his chopper, having taken off from the tuna boat María Delia in search of schools of the fish.

You can see the alertness and gratitude that washed over Shaddock the moment he was found:

“That dog is something else,” Shaddock said after touching dry land for the first time on Tuesday, where you can see he’s feeling a bit uncomfortable seeing so many people after so long being alone.

Asked how Bella was doing after the rescue, he said she was “amazing”, but then revealed something rather sad. Despite the bond between the two, Shaddock has had to give Bella up before he returns to Australia.

“The Australian embassy really made that decision for me,” Shaddock said later.

Unfortunately, Australia has very strict animal quarantine laws and Mexico is not an approved country for pet importation

However,  Animal Park presenter Ben Fogle has kindly offered to pay to reunite the two survivors, saying that he was so moved by their story in an Instagram post recently:

 

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Let’s hope that works out as well as Shaddock and Bella’s sea journey. The two deserve a long life together.

[sources:guardian]