My Near Drowning – Barra de Tabatinga – 01/03/2026

My name is Ricardo Gurgel. I am one of the survivors of the drowning incident that occurred on January 3, 2026.

My connection to Barra de Tabatinga

My family’s house in Barra de Tabatinga is located in the cove where the breakwater makes the sea look like an almost dry pool and, even when it is full, the waves are much calmer. I have always enjoyed “bodysurfing” (catching waves without a board). I even like getting tossed around by the sea, being more or less thrown by the wave onto the sand. I knew there would be one of the highest tides in the late afternoon. I knew it would be one of the biggest tides of the year and, at five o’clock in the afternoon, I checked the time, left the house at a pace faster than a light jog, and went straight to the open-sea cove, just under 1 km from home, about a seven-minute run to the point where I would enter the beach. I saw some people swimming; at least I would not be entering an empty area. It looked like everyone there was from the same family: an older man in the water, some girls nearby, and other people on the sand. I saw the line on the wet sand and, in my perception, the tide was still going to rise.

Wrong assumption

I even thought there was still a long way to go before it would peak. I did not check the tide table anywhere; I simply assumed the sea would continue to rise. I went in, swam for about ten minutes, and caught a few waves. Then I had my first difficulty getting out of the water. I felt trapped one or two meters behind the breaking waves, and from that moment I decided that I would leave the water as soon as I touched the bottom.

Note

On that day, high tide reached its peak at 5:01 p.m., with an approximate height of 2.2 meters. Therefore, at the moment we were in the water, the tide was already ebbing.

I broke my promise

I managed to step onto the sandbank moments later and escape the critical area. Since I had succeeded, I broke my promise to leave immediately; I thought about catching one last big wave before going home and went back for it. My last wave before leaving the water never happened. I was about three meters away from the safety line of the sandbank. As soon as I saw the girls, I thought about warning them to get out of there, because I was already in trouble. But before I could do so, they all started screaming for help.

The beginning of panic

We all knew the current had captured us, but even so, I believed I would be able to escape. Right at the beginning, I still had the confidence to try to push one of them forward, but with the turbulence of the water, without support or good traction from my legs and arms, I could not give any impulse to get her out. Failing that, I tried at least to keep her slightly elevated for about two minutes, an effort that was not very useful, just a brief extra breath. I could do nothing beyond that. Nothing else. That time was already enough for all of us to realize we were even farther apart. The movement of the current could be felt, but I did not have the ability to read it. I desperately needed to understand that movement. I was still rational enough to try a lateral escape.

I tried to read the current

Yes, I immediately remembered to swim sideways, but I froze and could not do it, and I do not really know why. I have no explanation other than that, at that moment, when I looked to the side, the water also seemed to be running backward, or that channel was much wider than usual, or there were very close parallel currents and it became a mental block. I also did not want to give the girls wrong instructions. To make things worse, the current seemed diagonal at one moment and straight the next, which completely confused what a “perpendicular exit to the current line” would be. I tried very hard to read the current—I really tried—but nothing was clear. There was no foam; the patterns the water formed gave me no clues. I was terribly afraid of indicating a wrong direction to them; it would have been unbearable to guide them to death. From the very beginning, they were screaming in terrible despair. They could not swim in any direction; instinctively, they only tried to keep their heads above water.

The screams were answered by other screams

One of them, in particular, had a very high-pitched, piercing scream, certainly heard by the people on the beach. I also heard the scream of a woman, I believe the girls’ mother or the mother of one of them—a scream of despair in the sea and another on the sand. They were already in full panic mode. I could only speak in a low voice. I still tried to explain that they should not scream, in order to preserve energy and pay attention to the waves. I could not speak loudly. I do not know if they heard me, but I know they kept screaming. It was their way of reacting to panic. At no point will I say they did anything wrong, because there no one knew what the right thing to do was. I also could not make myself heard, with no strength in my voice. I was struck by the power of those screams. It was painful to hear that fear. I was in distress ranging from red to black. The little ones were in panic and, at that moment, without hope. We began to spread apart. When I swam in the direction I believed was the right one, I looked back and none of them had managed to follow me. They were probably still paralyzed, only in survival mode, trying to keep their heads above water. They also knew that I myself was not sure I was swimming in the right direction. So even following me could have been fatal for them. There was nothing I could do that would guarantee that was the right path. A huge fear of giving wrong guidance. I simply took the risk of leaving the dynamic floating mode. They could not swim; they only seemed to be trying to keep water out of their mouths.

The volume of the screams dropped

The screams grew more and more distant. I do not know if I was advancing or holding my position, but the sea was carrying them away. The screams became distant—very distant. They sounded like lives fading out. I swam and heard them more and more faintly. At that moment I thought: “God, they are not going to survive. Help has to appear now. In a few minutes, they will not survive.”

The first terrible “certainty”

They were moving away and falling silent, and again I thought: “God, they are not going to survive. Help has to appear now. In a few minutes, they will not survive.” I truly believed there was no more time for them, that there was no way they would survive. When everything went silent, I thought death had arrived there.

A head in the sea brought the first hope

I swam for a few more minutes and saw a head. A stranger who was there, putting himself at high risk. He looked at me and asked if I was drowning. I answered very softly, “Yes,” and he came a little closer, stayed about five meters away, and told me: “Come this way.” I saw that he had swim fins, the only equipment he was using for such a risk.

Guidance

He kept repeating: “Come this way!” We swam in the direction he indicated for a long time, and even with the new direction, it felt like we were not moving at all, which was agonizing. My energy was already very low. I asked him to come closer so I could pause and breathe with the help of his shoulder, assuring him that I would not pull him down. He trusted me, and I took a quick breath. After many minutes maintaining the rhythm, with tired vision and extremely low energy, I said I was going to black out. He replied: NO, DON’T BLACK OUT, DON’T BLACK OUT! WHAT’S YOUR NAME, WHAT’S YOUR NAME, TELL ME! With my hands, I indicated that I would speak later, to avoid wasting energy with my voice. He understood. After a while, I repeated that I was going to black out, and he said we were getting close to the sand. I looked and still thought we were not moving. I thought it was a lie, but I did not challenge him. In fact, he kindly lied to keep my morale up. For a long time, even swimming sideways, it felt like we were not moving either toward the sand or laterally. After some time, I saw a childhood friend enter the sea with a nautical buoy, those small red, blessed ones. I owe you the name of my first hero, which I will still look up and add here. He put himself at risk using only fins.

Only then did I believe I would survive

Marcelo is my second hero. He was the one who entered with that buoy, and it was only from that moment on that I glimpsed a real chance of surviving. Despite a few minutes that felt long at this stage, as soon as the buoy arrived, the first hero could be released back to the beach, and Marcelo stayed with me until I had enough strength to pull myself through the water with my hands and reach the sand. As soon as I arrived, I tried to walk and fell, my body lied to me, saying there was still some reserve. There was almost nothing left.

Saving lies

I am grateful for the good lies that raised my morale and led me to survive. In the final stage, my body sent me signals that there was still enough charge even to walk, but there was not. I was using everything, with no warning of an empty tank. To the friend who came to my rescue and had to lie, saying we were getting closer, I can only say thank you.

To the supportive strangers

On the beach, many strangers were willing to help. I can only be grateful. A few minutes later, I was still recovering on the sand.

The firefighters

The firefighters arrived in large numbers and headed to the other cove. If they had arrived a little later, only I would have survived, as I was the only one rescued before their arrival. It would have been a terrible loneliness of survival.

The current had carried the girls close to a rocky area, at least that was how it looked from my perspective. Soon I learned that two of them had been saved. I thought it was an incredible miracle. I was desperately hoping they would find the third girl, but the information that came was that she was still missing. And disappearing at sea leads us to terrible certainties. After some time recovering, I walked back home and did not even know how to tell what had happened.

About the tide

I must have entered the sea around 5:15 p.m. and left around 5:40 p.m. It was not just a wave backwash current; it was an ebb tide, an entire sea receding. I was wrong to think it was rising: it was the emptying of a high-amplitude tide, determined by the gravitational attraction between the Sun and the Moon on the strongest tide of the year.

Return route

I took some references to try to map my return route. The map may contain inaccuracies; I sought fidelity, but it will only be an approximation that may help to understand the local current system. We need warning.

Zoom do zoom

A critical moment.The impression conveyed by the image is one of proximity, but at that point I had already been unable to see them for several minutes, nor could I hear any screams. It is possible that they were already conserving energy.

In the screenshot, I am highlighted in green. In blue appears the first rescuer, I promise to find out his name, as he was vital at that moment. He was also at risk when he perceived the situation and chose to confront it. In pink are the girls.

Perspective compression

What could have led to the complete loss of any sense of their position from our point of view? Part of the explanation may be related to perspective compression caused by the use of optical zoom in the image. Digital zoom was certainly used; as for optical zoom, I cannot say for sure whether it was also employed in combination.

A typical example of the effect known as perspective compression

Extremely low line of sight

The other factor, this one virtually certain was the extremely low line of sight we had: we were only keeping our heads above the water, which drastically reduced the visual field and contributed to the distortion of distance perception.

The walk and the house

One of the strongest desires I had while I was in the sea was to see my baby niece, actually the four-month-old daughter of my cousin, whom I treat as my niece. When I got home, she was looking at me and smiling. Another turmoil running through me was imagining how my father and mother would be if I did not make it out.

God

With so many specific details at key moments and in inescapable instants, the chain of events during the recovery phase, and even before it became evident. Right at the beginning I had a warning, but I broke my promise to leave the water as soon as I stepped onto the sandbank. I think that, in some way, I challenged God. Even so, “actors” appeared again, as if sent to help. Even after I had dismissed the chance to leave the water, I was still helped again.

I had several moments of apparent total exhaustion; energy returned to my arms without explanation, unexpectedly. I could not remain still for even a few seconds. It is absolutely astonishing that I had multiple chances to swallow seawater and, in none of them, did it reach my lungs. Every time I was surprised, I was not inhaling air; and even while swallowing water, my body suppressed the gag reflex, which would have been an extremely complicated operation in that context. Even so, I managed to breathe and keep my head above water, overcoming the waves. God was there.

Strange reactions of the body and mind throughout this chaos

I drank.I swallowed a lot of seawater, but my body did not trigger the vomiting reflex. I do not know if it was because of my position in the water; at sea, I did not even seem to feel how salty it was. But when I reached the beach, the urge that had not appeared in the water came on solid ground. Even so, I could not expel what was in my stomach.

Moments of acceptance

When I no longer heard the screams, I thought they had all died and believed that I myself had only a few minutes left to live. It was not panic, but extreme distress and the decision to swim to the limit, seeking to black out from exhaustion.

Cramps

I did not have cramps or any pain that prevented me from swimming (or trying to). I had the “luck” of swallowing water without choking.

Energy management

The absurd sensation was that my overall energy underwent a new rebalancing, privileging the arms, reducing the energy in the legs, and even reducing the energy available for more complex thinking. As a result, several aspects of that moment are only clear to me now. I even partly attribute to this the fact that it took me so long to force myself to swim laterally.

Panic vs. distress

I believe I remained much more in the realm of distress, as if I did not have the energy to activate full panic mode, which ended up being a blessing. Of course it was there, but it was overshadowed by distress.

On the sand

When I managed to breathe a little better and recover on the sand, I began to speak without restraint, like a machine gun, but in a comprehensible way, perhaps a turbo-charged form of venting.

Headache and no sleep on the first night

A typical headache from mental congestion on the first day, complete with many scenes from the episode replaying throughout the night, the early morning, and the dawn, without sleep.

Several times a phantom battery went from 0 to 5%

I would say that at least five times I had the sensation of the battery almost hitting zero and, out of nowhere, returning to 5% for that necessary and urgent effort. It was an imminent shutdown that kept being postponed, postponed, and postponed.

Tribute to Lara Rebeca, victim of drowning on January 3, 2026

“Sweet child, we fought hard and for a long time for life. Beyond the extreme effort to stay above the waves, any distraction meant the certainty of swallowing water. You are now an angel, in complete peace. Your little friends and I know how much you deserve eternal happiness.”

Here are my respects and my sorrow for the little one who did not survive.