Swallowed by the sea

Being swept off your feet is usually pleasant, not so for Marie Joelle Thenoz, who was carried into the sea by a huge wave on Monday.

Posing as her husband took a picture next to the frothing sea at Wied iż-Żurrieq shortly after noon struck, a huge wave came up and swept her into the sea.

“At first, I was quite calm,” Ms Thenoz, a government consultant based in Paris, recounted. “However, when the sea was tumbling me as if I was in a washing machine, I started to worry whether this was the end,” Ms Thenoz, now back home in France, said.

Ms Thenoz, a proud grandmother of four, was in Malta with her husband of 35 years, Charles, and another four couples, who 20 years ago had scaled Mount Kilimanjaro together. They were in Malta to commemorate that ascent and when in Wied iż-Żurrieq the foamy sea reminded them of the snowy Kilimanjaro peak.

“The sea was beautiful, white – just like the summit of Kilimanjaro,” Mr Thenoz, a keen photographer, said.

After she spent a few interminable minutes in the sea, her husband spotted a rope and, as she approached it, a wave similar to the one that had brought her down propped her up and she managed to get hold of it.

As it turned out, her mountaineering background, honed yearly in Chamonix, came in useful and she managed to place first one hand, then the other and haul herself out of the water.

“It’s good to be into sports,” Ms Thenoz quips in hindsight.

She reluctantly went to hospital for tests, which showed no damage had been done and, on Thursday, she was back home to work on a big conference she is coordinating in Avignon.

The incident has not deterred the couple’s enthusiasm for the island and they plan to return once they retire... but this time with a catamaran they are planning to buy with another group of friends.