Rafie Nadi, 23, was rescued off Spain’s coast after nearly two days floating with only an inflatable ring and flippers. For more than 40 hours he floated in the Mediterranean, buoyed only by an inflatable ring and flippers. Gripped by fear and disheartened by the handful of vessels that had passed by him, Nadi was kept from slipping under by a jumble of hopes. Five years earlier, he had set off from Egypt to help provide for his family; now he desperately prayed he would finally make it to Europe and live to see his mother again.
His rescue in July made headlines around the world. Dehydrated, exhausted and his skin burning from overexposure to sun and seawater, he could be seen in video clips collapsed on a ship’s deck, barely able to move or talk, after he was pulled from the water by a family sailing to the Balearic Islands. Their boat was met at sea by a maritime rescue service vessel, which took him to port in Málaga and handed him over to police and the Red Cross.
Nadi said he had set off from the coast of Fnideq, Morocco, with a 17-year-old friend in mid-July, hoping to swim to Spain’s north African enclave of Ceuta. “We had calculated that we would reach Ceuta in five or six hours,” he said six weeks after the rescue. “But I began to worry when the sun came up and we still hadn’t made it.” The plan had been weeks in the works. After four unsuccessful attempts to scale Ceuta’s border fence, Nadi and his friend hatched an alternative plan, cobbling together funds to buy wetsuits, inflatable rings and flippers.
While the forecast had promised calm seas, the waves were high, pushing and pulling them deeper into the Mediterranean. “In the morning, after swimming for more than eight hours, my friend and I were separated,” said Nadi. “The sea separated us.” He fought back panic as he scanned the horizon, seeing only miles of water and no land in sight. “I was terrified of dying at sea. I hoped that God would save me or that I would find a boat and get close enough for them to rescue me,” he said. “I thought about my mother, who I hadn’t seen in five years, and how I want to see her before I die.”
Lost and exhausted after two nights and another full day in the sea, he spotted what looked like a boat heading towards him. “I started waving my arms,” he said. He watched, his hopes slowly rising, as those onboard peered at him through binoculars. “I started swimming towards them, they threw me a rope and I grabbed it. They pulled me up, gave me food, water and clothes.” Those onboard the yacht captured the rescue on video. “We’ve called in a shipwrecked man and we’re going to pick him up,” a man can be heard saying as he pans the scene, showing Nadi as a tiny speck in the vast sea.
