All smiles as Atlantic rowers return home

Almost a week to the hour after a freak wave wrecked their rowing boat and threw them into the wild Atlantic, Gearóid Towey and Ciarán Lewis faced a media storm at Dublin airport yesterday - and again kept their heads.

"This is my second frightening experience," quipped Towey (28) as another media wave descended on them as relatives and friends milled around the Great Southern Hotel.

The tanker which rescued the men, the Hispania Spirit, had docked in Cartagena, before a private plane chartered by Denis O'Brien had flown Lewis, Towey and some close family directly to Dublin. O'Brien's company Digicel had been one of the main sponsors of their participation in the Atlantic rowing race.

In Dublin there was a festive air . The levity of the occasion was complete and the photographers sated when the two men were handed pints of stout and happily sank them. Lewis (34) had told Morning Ireland on Monday that the one thing he looked forward to most about returning to Ireland was "a pint".

"Is that Murphy's?" asked Gearóid's mother Carmel Towey, to laughter from the large Cork contingent up to welcome home the son of Kilworth near Fermoy. Ms Towey had hugged her son for the first time since the incident when she boarded the jet in Dublin.

"To see both of them safe and sound was terrific," she said emotionally.

Amid the banter and back-slapping came the recounting of the awful events which ended their participation in the race. "We really didn't know whether we'd make it home or not, so it's really good to be here," Towey said.

"For a few moments, when the boat capsized, it felt like life or death, but then, as soon as we got ourselves together, we realised we had to get our life raft together and we just clicked into survival mode and we just did what was necessary and it got us through."

The interest in the rescue at home was a surprise. "We didn't really know this was the kind of response we'd get when we got home. We're just quite amazed at the moment that it's such a big thing."

Later, Towey added: "Seeing everybody here, you just realise how close we were to something really bad going on. We're just relieved to be here."

They were "really lucky" that the Hispania Spirit had been taking a route it had not covered in three years.

"When we got capsized we realised we were in the middle of nowhere."

Capt Roque Enunza "who basically saved our lives" had been given the "small reward" of a painting of the two oarsmen in action by a friend of the Towey family, Ollie Stack, and some Irish whiskey.

Asked if he would take on the ocean again, Towey paused briefly. "I won't rule it out. Getting across the ocean was something we wanted to do and which we haven't succeeded in doing. So I suppose it's something that will always play on our minds. Give it a bit of time. We'll do a bit of thinking and see after that."

Lewis was slower to make any such commitment and broke into a nervous guffaw when asked whether he would do it again. He said he was not thinking of reprising the effort "at the moment".

Three months ago, before he left Ireland, Lewis told of how his mother, Belfast-born Maureen Lewis, had responded when he told her he was taking on the Atlantic in a rowing boat. "You're only middle-aged once," she told him.