Rescued Teen Sailor: 'Since When Does Age Create Gigantic Waves and Storms?'

June 12, 2010 — -- For the first time since she was rescued from the middle of the Indian Ocean early Saturday, a California teenager is describing her ordeal at sea.

"It's been a little bit crazy the past few days, everything's happened pretty fast, but I'm really lucky that there was a boat that could come and get me where I was," Abby Sunderland, 16, told a reporter from Australia radio.

Sunderland was rescued by the crew aboard a French fishing vessel just before 3 a.m. Pacific time Saturday, some 2,000 miles off the coast of Australia. The teen called her parents back home in Thousand Oaks, Calif., a short time later.

"We are obviously greatly relieved Abigail is aboard the recue vessel. We were all so sleepy eyed and tired until her call came in this morning," Laurence Sunderland, Abby's father, told reporters Saturday outside the family's home.

"Our eyeballs were hanging out of our head just bumping into the walls and then some sort of little zeal came into us once we got speaking to Abigail and we are all very relieved," he said. "It's been a long couple of days. And we'll be glad to get her back here."

Sunderland will spend the next week or so traveling to Reunion Island, a French territory east of Madagascar. Aside from a few bumps and bruises, her family says she is fine.

On Thursday, rough seas tore the mast from her sailboat and disabled her satellite communications, leaving her out of touch with her family. She set off emergency beacons, and rescuers in a chartered jet spotted Sunderland's boat later that day. She says she was never frightened.