.One particularly bad storm rocked the freighter with such might that it flung bodies from one side to the other.
"We thought we were going to die," one of the 76 Tamil migrants, who made the dangerous journey from Thailand to Canada last fall, said Thursday from Toronto.
As another cargo ship -- this time carrying 490 suspected Sri Lankan minority Tamils -- has reached Canada's western shores, a handful of Tamil migrants who made the voyage on the Ocean Lady has agreed to speak out for the first time.
The group, whose ship initially docked at Victoria's Ogden Point last October, has a message for those Canadians who think the government is too accommodating to the asylum seekers -- or who wish the government would just turn away the ship: listen first to what the refugees have to say.
"They all have a story to tell," the Toronto migrant said through a translator in a telephone interview. "If they know what they have undergone and where they've come from, I'm sure they wouldn't come to this opinion."
The man, who is in his 30s, requested anonymity because of ongoing concerns about his own safety and that of his family back home.
Because of those concerns, he said he wasn't able to share details about his life in Sri Lanka.
He said he has a wife and daughter and owned a business, which employed several people. Life was good.
But he alleges that the government initiated an ethnic-cleansing campaign against Tamils -- and he became a target.
And so, he says, he paid $40,000 to a smuggler to get him out of the country.
He first flew to Bangkok and then took a trawler to the waiting freighter. He brought a sack of clothes and nothing else.
The migrants slept on mattresses arranged in three rows in the belly of the ship.
The first few days, he and the 75 other migrants -- all of whom were strangers to him -- did not say a word to one another.
But by the third or fourth day, they began to share their stories. They wept as they spoke, he said.
The shipmates subsisted on rice, bread, instant noodles and cookies. But motion sickness hit just about everybody and many found it difficult to keep their food down.
They had soft drinks and bottled water. When they ran out of bottled water, they collected rainwater.
In the early days, temperatures soared inside the ship. In the trip's waning days, temperatures plummeted.
There weren't enough blankets to go around.
The migrants did their best to keep conditions tidy.
One military official would later remark how the migrants habitually took off their shoes and put on slippers when entering their sleeping quarters.
"They treated it like their home," he said.
The migrants had light in the ship but when the vessel shuddered in rough seas, electricity would shut down.
The man recalled that they endured several nasty storms but the most brutal -- the last one -- made them fear for their lives.
As they held on to whatever they could, they had to make sure others didn't slam into them.
"It's like a terror. There's no word to describe it," he said.
He rationalized things this way: if he died, at least out here in the ocean, the sea life could feed on his body. If he were killed in Sri Lanka, his body would most likely go unclaimed.
But they survived that storm. And days later, as they stood on the deck of the vessel, they knew they were safe when they were greeted by planes flying overhead with the word "Canada" in green letters on them.
While he waits for his turn to appear at a refugee hearing, the young father passes his days taking English classes.
He has applied for a work permit. He says he does not like collecting welfare from the government and being a "burden" on taxpayers.
He said he admires Canadians for being "broad-minded" and "soft-hearted."
While he says he dearly misses his wife and daughter -- he keeps a pink album of their photos tucked in his pocket at all times -- he knows he made the right decision. "No regrets whatsoever," he said.
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