What could have very easily been a potentially devastating story of two Croatian and Slovenian surfers who decided to take to the extremely rough and dangerous waves on the Adriatic sea a few days ago have miraculously been found safe and well. While one of the surfers, a Croatian citizen, managed to somehow reach the shore in Croatia, his Slovenian counterpart went missing, only to have managed, rather incredulously, to have survived the high seas and end up on the shore not too far from Trieste, Italy.
As we reported yesterday, the waves recorded in certain parts of the Adriatic, more specifically around Palagruža, Croatia’s most remote lighthouse island, were the highest they have been since back in 2004, reaching over seven metres in height, and when the news broke that a search for the missing surfer had begun, nobody could have imagined a happy ending. Incredibly, a happy ending came.
As Index writes on the 31st of October, 2018, the alarming story of the two missing people, Croatian and Slovenian surfers, broke yesterday. As stated, things looked far from promising that afternoon, when the two surfers disappeared in the stormy sea near Umag in Istria. Almost immediately, the search began, which was largely limited due to dangerous weather conditions wreaking havoc on both the Croatian and the Italian sides of the Adriatic sea.
Despite the fact that the situation looked dire, that very same day, after several hours of searching, the Croatian surfer was found. He managed to battle the waves, and swim to the shore, saving himself.
The search for the Slovenian surfer, 47-year-old Goran Jablanov, had to be cut short due to darkness and terrible weather conditions out at sea. The search continued yesterday morning, but ended with no results, leaving everyone naturally expecting the worst. In the afternoon, however, some truly incredible news arrived from Italy. The Slovenian surfer, after more than 24 hours stuck in the stormy sea, managed to get to the shore not far from Trieste.
During these incomprehensible 24 hours spent in a stormy sea, he managed to cover about forty kilometres, according to a report from the Italian portal Il Piccolo, which brings about some new details about the rescue of this amazingly lucky Slovenian surfer.
As the Slovenian media also writes, the surfer came out of the sea himself, arriving on the beach of Costa dei Barbari, which is located about twenty kilometres from Trieste. He simply went into a nearby cafe and called for help there. He was quickly hospitalised, but was given the okay and released that same night.
”Lucky” doesn’t quite do this situation justice!
