[sigh]
Nobody here is trying to explain anything away. Maybe they did leave the beach days in advance. Maybe so. Good for them. Two hours in advance would have been somehat more impressive from the Art Bell standpoint, but I'll accept two days if that's what happened.
As it would happen... I don't actually care. That these people were saved from terror at the pitiful mercy of ocean waves is a great and wonderful thing for them. It would seem to me that this is what matters.
Whether there was an active spiritual component to their fate that was different from the fate of thousands of others is matter for resolution only in another life. It is not for resolution here.
fair enough.