Teenager survives 49 days adrift in Pacific after fish trap slips mooring
Indonesian lamp keeper sucked seawater from his clothes as succession of ships failed to spot him
A TEENAGER has survived for 49 days after claiming to have floated adrift in a flimsy hut for thousands of miles across the Pacific Ocean.
Aldi Novel Adilang, 19, was working shifts as a lamp keeper for a floating fish trap 80 miles off the coast of North Sulawesi, in Indonesia, when strong winds broke the mooring and pushed him out to sea.
He was eventually rescued a month later by a ship sailing under a Panama flag that picked him up in the waters near Guam and then dropped him off in Japan, according to the Jakarta Post.
Mr Aldi, who was finally reunited with his family this month, had struggled to keep his spirits up when 10 passing ships failed to notice his plight, said an Indonesian consular official in the
‘After he ran out of cooking gas, he burnt the rompong’s wooden fences to make fire for cooking’
southern Japanese city of Osaka. “Aldi said he had been scared and often cried when adrift. Every time he saw a large ship, he said he was hopeful, but more than 10 ships passed him, and none of them stopped,” said Fajar Firdaus, a diplomat.
Mirza Nurhidayat, the Indonesian consul general in Osaka, explained that Mr Aldi’s hut, known as a rompong, did not have a paddle or an engine.
After he had finished his meagre supplies, he had to catch fish and suck seawater from his clothes to survive. “After he ran out of cooking gas, he burnt the rompong’s wooden fences to make fire for cooking. He drank by sipping water from his clothes,” Mr Nurhidayat said.
Mr Aldi’s ordeal ended on Aug 31 when he saw the tanker Arpeggio sailing nearby. After failing to attract its attention, he is said to have switched his radio to an emergency frequency and the ship’s captain picked up the signal. The rescue was complicated by high waves but crew members reportedly threw a rope to help him as the ship circled his tiny craft.
In desperation, Mr Aldi jumped into the water to reach it, but after weeks at sea, he was already very weak and almost lost the rope. The ship’s crew are said to have eventually caught hold of his hand and he was pulled to safety.
The captain contacted the coastguard of Guam, a tiny US territory, but was told to carry on his planned route to Japan, where Mr Aldi could be helped by his embassy. Although his journey had a happy ending and Mr Aldi is now in good health, his story has highlighted the perils faced by lamp keepers who take on the isolated job of looking after fish traps.
Mr Aldi had been contracted to light lamps around the rompong to attract and trap fish, and had only a walkietalkie for company.
His only contact with another human being was once a week when someone would come to harvest the caught fish and give him a fresh batch of food, fuel, water and other supplies.