SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI

Karate in­struc­tor Mario Kalloo is ac­cus­tomed to swim­ming 200 me­tres out at sea as part of his dai­ly ex­er­cise regime.

Chal­leng­ing him­self, Kalloo went be­yond where he usu­al­ly stops in the wa­ter at Mac­queripe Bay and found him­self in dif­fi­cul­ty, re­sult­ing in him spend­ing 12 ag­o­nis­ing hours in a dark, in­sect-in­fest­ed cave be­fore help came his way.

Re­call­ing his or­deal yes­ter­day at the St Au­gus­tine Karate Do­jo and Keep Fit Cen­tre where he teach­es mar­tial arts, Kalloo ad­mit­ted he was lucky to be alive.

“I have to thank God,” he said, clasp­ing his hands and giv­ing praise to the Almighty.

De­scrib­ing him­self as a recre­ation­al swim­mer, Kalloo, 63, a for­mer prin­ci­pal of the Blan­chisseuse Sec­ondary School and vice prin­ci­pal of St An­tho­ny’s Col­lege, went to the beach on Fri­day to take his evening dip.

“I have been go­ing to Mac­queripe for over 40 years to swim,” he said.

Af­ter mak­ing a few laps across the bay “from a cave to the oth­er side,” Kalloo said he got a burst of en­er­gy and de­cid­ed to go fur­ther out in the wa­ter.

That de­ci­sion al­most cost him his life.

“When I went out I didn’t re­alise there was a strong cur­rent at that point. Hon­est­ly, I have nev­er had the ex­pe­ri­ence of get­ting in­to a strong cur­rent be­fore.”

In an at­tempt to get back to shore, Kalloo got in­to dif­fi­cul­ties.

“The wa­ter kept push­ing me fur­ther out...about 500 me­tres. I know my strength....you don’t take chances un­nec­es­sar­i­ly. I re­alised I could not swim through it. I looked for a way out...and the way out was a cave close by.”

Pan­ick­ing and scared, Kalloo said he com­posed him­self and swam to the cave.

As dark­ness be­gan to fall, Kalloo said he walked up a track which was cov­ered in grass but did not see any­one.

“I called out for help. But no one was around. I went back in­to the wa­ter to get out but it was too rough. The wa­ter kept tum­bling me.”

The fa­ther of two said he was slammed re­peat­ed­ly against sev­er­al rocks and re­alised it was too dan­ger­ous to swim in the di­rec­tion he came.

Kalloo ad­mit­ted that he had found him­self in deep wa­ters.

At that point, Kalloo said he knew his on­ly safe haven was the cave where he had to spend the night.

“I was in that cave from 6 pm on Fri­day to 6 am on Sat­ur­day. What was go­ing through my mind was my fam­i­ly who had not seen me for so many hours and what they were think­ing. I had hoped to leave the beach by 5 pm to go home. But things did not turn out as planned. Some­times things come to you and you have to deal with them. You have to learn from your ex­pe­ri­ence.”

Wor­ried and scared, Kalloo said he stayed awake in the cave as sand flies feast­ed on his ex­haust­ed body.

“Af­ter a cer­tain time, I stopped look­ing at my watch. I saw two he­li­copters and a few boats pass by. I waved at them but did not grab their at­ten­tion.”

In his dark­est hour, Kalloo said he al­so did a lot of in­tro­spec­tion, med­i­tat­ed and prayed.

“I al­so did some mar­tial arts,” he said jok­ing­ly.

Kalloo said he was not hun­gry be­cause he prac­tices in­ter­mit­tent fast­ing.

“I would nor­mal­ly fast for 16 hours at a time.”

When Kalloo did not show up at his Val­sayn home, his wor­ried wife called the po­lice and the Hunters Search and Res­cue Team led by Val­lance Ramb­harat who combed the beach­front but they came up emp­ty-hand­ed.

At the crack of dawn on Sat­ur­day, Kalloo’s broth­er-in-law John Hors­fal used a kayak and went in search of him.

“The minute I saw John com­ing to­wards me I felt so re­lieved and hap­py. I knew help would have come.”

Hav­ing sur­vived his or­deal, Kalloo said he was faced with an­oth­er shock­er when he found out that some­one had bro­ken in­to his car while he was strand­ed on the beach.

The thief stole his cell­phone and wal­let which con­tained his dri­ver’s per­mit and ID card.

Luck­i­ly, the per­pe­tra­tor did not find his mon­ey which was hid­den in his car.

Hav­ing learnt from his ex­pe­ri­ence, Kalloo said he would still swim in Mac­queripe but would avoid the dan­ger zone.