Surfer Martin Markwell had always dreamed of catching a really big wave but when it finally came along, it turned into a nightmare.
He was paddling on his surfboard on Sunday off the Hikkaduwa resort on Sri Lanka's southern coast when he was swept up by a tsunami and sent crashing over a beach and into a hotel restaurant.
"It was really terrible because I was surfing on a wave I wasn't supposed to be on," said Mr Markwell, 38, from Porthcawl, south Wales. "As an experienced surfer, when I saw the wave come I realised something was wrong, but I couldn't escape because my surfboard was tied to my ankle."
His wife Vicki and son Jake looked on in horror from a hotel balcony. Miraculously, he managed to stay on his board until he reached the hotel, jumped off and waded to safety as the ocean rolled back to feed a much larger tsunami on its way.
The family regrouped and ran inland to safety.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
http://talk.workunlimited.co.uk/tsunami/story/0,15671,1381799,00.html
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