This is the story of Nithya Dayalan, 31, his brother Arun Dayalan, 29, cousin Kalidas Kumar, 22, Muneeswaran, 37, Rajendran, 38, and Maria Dennis, 37, and their long, perilous journey from Iran through Qatar, the Strait of Hormuz and Oman, before they were detained by the Indian Coast Guards off the Kochi coast.
Nothing about the day seemed extraordinary. On the morning of April 22, the sea crashing into the predawn darkness of the shore, the six fishermen hauled their nets, hooks, baits and food supplies onto the deck of the boat, and set sail. Just as they did every day.
Except, that day, the six men in the boat had a daring plan: to flee their employer in Bandar-e Chiruiyeh, a harbour in the Iranian province of Hormozgan, and sail all the way back home to India, a distance of over 1,500 nautical miles, threading the geopolitically volatile Strait of Hormuz before entering the forbidding, blue expanse of the Arabian Sea.
