Galicia has a long history of shipwrecks , but even then , the story of Arnhild Utheim stands out in the collective memory . On December 31 , 1948 , a child was washed ashore on a beach in Cape Silleiro , in the northwestern Spanish town of Baiona . The soldiers who found her there couldn ’ t understand what she was saying : the 10-year-old emerged from the raging sea speaking Norwegian . Arnhild had been traveling on the Thalassa , a 28-meter-long yacht , with her entire family and a dozen more people . They had been on their way to the Galapagos Islands when the hull split in two after hitting the underwater rocks of Ponta do Lobo . Everyone but her was killed . The people here have been very affectionate Shipwreck survivor Arnhild Utheim Seven decades later , the 80-year-old Arnhild has returned to the beach where she woke up to a very different life to the one she had once dreamed of with her family . After being washed ashore , she fell asleep on a “ bed of rocks ” and woke up later in “ discomfort and pain ” as two Galician soldiers approached her . “ I know that they wrapped me up in a blanket , but I don ’ t remember anything else about that day , ” she says on the phone , hours before a tribute to the victims of the Thalassa , organized by Baiona authorities and Talaso Atlántico Hotel . Arnhild , together with her parents Arne and Svanhild and her two siblings , nine-year-old Erling and 14-year-old Skjalg , were part of an expedition of Norwegian immigrants who had been hit hard by the Second World War and wanted to start a new life for themselves by opening a salting factory in the Pacific . After celebrating Christmas Eve at the Vigo Royal Yacht Club , complete with dinner and dancing to accordion music , the family and its crew , loaded with the machinery needed for the new project , set sail for Oporto in Portugal . But by dawn of December 31 , the severe weather conditions convinced them to turn back towards Galicia . They tried to return to the port of Vigo , but before they could reach safety the yacht crashed into the submerged rocks of Punta do Lobo . When the soldiers found Arnhild on the beach , they gave her a blank sheet of paper and she wrote her name in a bloodied scrawl . They brought her back to town , where the locals treated her cuts and bruises . A week later she returned to Norway to be raised by one of her aunts . “ My aunt was very strict and did not want to talk about what happened . For 21 years I knew absolutely nothing about Baiona , ” says Arnhild . “ Later I was lucky with work , with my bosses . I have had a great husband and daughter . Life has smiled at me . What I have missed has been my closest family. ” After the accident , a Spanish sailor named his daughter Arnila , in honor of the Norwegian survivor After the shipwreck , when Arnhild was already back in Norway , the bodies of some of the victims of the Thalassa washed up on shore . Because of her aunt ’ s reign of silence , it took her a long time to realize that one of the bodies recovered was that of her mother . Arnhild was able to identify her thanks to a photograph published in the press . Twenty-one years after the accident , Arnhild began to search through the archives and reconstruct what happened that day . For the first time since the shipwreck , she set foot in Baiona . Her mother was buried in a cemetery in Baiona , inside a mass grave with the remains of the other victims . A local woman named Carmen was in charge of taking care of the tomb , a job that her daughter Flora inherited when Carmen died . “ The people here have been very affectionate , ” says Arnhild . The shipwreck left a mark on the town of Baiona . Seven months after the tragedy , a sailor who helped rescue what was left of the Thalassa named his baby girl Arnila , in honor of the young Norwegian survivor . English version by Melissa Kitson .
Arnhild Utheim was 10 years old when she woke up on a Spanish beach after her entire family was drowned in 1948