Weathering the biggest wave

When Dave Gutzman saw the water drain out of the bay of Phi Phi Island on Dec. 26, he thought he was witnessing a tidal phenomenon caused by the full moon.

Standing on the deck of his Catalina 38, during his two-year sailing adventure around the world, it took only a few minutes for him to realize this was something different. And he was suddenly thankful that he had securely anchored the boat the day before.

It was about 10 a.m. when the water rushed out of the bay, locals gathered on the beach to watch, and other sailors were photographing the strange event from their decks. Phi Phi Island is near Phuket, Thailand.

"When we saw it coming back in I thought: Tsunami," Gutzman said Tuesday to about 70 people at the Carson City Noon Rotary Club meeting in the Carson Nugget.

The tidal wave caused a whirlpool inside the bay. Water came in one side and out the other.

"Then the big wave came and bounced off the island," he said. "The waves probably came 40 to 50 feet above sea level on the island. Waves 18 feet high came toward us. It was definitely the most frightening experience of my life. But the anchor held strong."

While the water was rushing out of the bay, Gutzman and his sailing partner lifted the anchor, revved the engine and rode a wave out of the bay. Other boats were spinning out of control. None of the sailboats anchored in Phi Phi bay were lost, but several locals' fishing boats were. Gutzman spent the rest of the day looking for anyone who had been carried out to sea. He didn't find anyone. Later he would hear that more than a 1,000 people on the island had been killed.

Gutzman, 32, said he called his parents, Ron and Bev Gutzman in Carson City, by satellite phone and told them he was safe, if they happened to hear of a tsunami in Thailand. He had no way of knowing that the Western world had already heard about the earthquake and tsunami.

"We were in the middle of havoc, but we had less information probably than anybody else in this room," Gutzman said while flipping through a power-point presentation of his adventure. Pictures showed him dancing with hula girls, greeting island children or holding up large, exotic fish caught off the side of the boat.

Gutzman didn't show pictures of the coast after the big wave hit, or any of the chaos it created. He said it was too dangerous to go ashore, and even if they could, he didn't want to wander around taking photos of others' misfortune.

Gutzman and his sailing partner, Philippa Gerving, anchored the boat in Malaysia at the first marina that was still intact. They helped load emergency relief supplies onto ships. He said he felt desperate to help the survivors, but there was little for them to do but stay out of the way.

His sailboat is still in Malaysia, and it will stay there while he takes a year off from his trek around the world. Gutzman said he'll live in Carson City for this year and then finish the last two-year leg of the trip. The next leg of the trip will be to South Africa and the final year will take him back to the United States. He started off as a novice sailor, but he survived a tsunami.

"The reason I went on this trip was because I'd been working for six years, I made a lot of money and saved a lot of money, so I decided it was time to do something different before I settle down, if I settle down," he said.

Gutzman graduated from Carson High School in 1991. For the last six years he has lived in San Francisco and operated an online business that sells customer surveys. To see pictures of Gutzman's trip and read about his around-the-world endeavor visit www.pandaemonium.us.

n Contact reporter Becky Bosshart at bbosshart@nevadaappeal.com or 881-1212.