‘ We were convinced that everyone had given up looking for us’
Swept to sea in a storm, men drifted in open boat in the Pacific for five months, surviving on raw fish and rainwater
WELLINGTON, New Zealand — Two men from Papua New Guinea have told rescuers how they survived almost five months adrift in a tiny open boat in the Pacific by eating raw fish and drinking rainwater.
Michael Bolong, 54, and Ambros Wavut, 28, were eventually picked up by a fishing vessel after trying in vain for months to catch the attention of passing ships.
The two men were safely landed on Pohnpei in Micronesia’s Caroline Islands. They were said to be suffering from severe sunburn but were otherwise well and have been released from hospital.
They said a third person who had been in the boat, named Francis Dimansol, 48, died from severe health problems during their ordeal. It is unclear what became of his body.
The islanders are thought to have drifted at least 1,600 kilometres after setting off in July from Lihir island in the province of New Ireland, east of the Papua New Guinea mainland, in a motorboat.
The men said they had survived by eating raw fish and drinking rainwater and had weathered a number of severe storms.
“We were convinced that everyone had given up looking for us,” Bolong told the crew of the Yap Seagull fishing boat, which picked them up.
“We know from other instances of boats being lost that after a while searchers give up, convinced that no one can survive after many weeks in an open boat.
“There is no doubt that after weeks, which turned into months, we were forgotten, except by our families.”
The rescue was reported by the Micronesian government information service on the island of Yap, but details remain scarce.
Describing their survival as miraculous, the report said the men were swept out to sea after they were caught in a storm and ran out of fuel while making a short trip from Lihir to a nearby island.
The men — believed to be construction workers rather than fishermen — were picked up by the Yap Seagull some 190 kilometres south of the remote Kapingamarangi Island on Nov. 23.
“They saw passing ships but could not get the message across that they were in trouble,” an island official on Pohnpei said Friday. The most we can establish at this stage is that Mr. Dimansol had succumbed to the elements.”
Carl Apis, the assistant secretary of foreign affairs for the
They saw passing ships but could not get the message across that they were in trouble.
ISLAND OFFICIAL
Micronesia government, said the Papua New Guinea authorities were trying to contact the men’s families to confirm their identities. Bolong is believed to be Wavut’s uncle.
He said they were being put up locally by the Salvation Army and islanders had donated clothes and food. They were still being interviewed about their ordeal.
The men’s survival follows revelations earlier this year that a Mexican fisherman, Jose Alvarenga, had drifted across the Pacific for 13 months before his boat washed ashore in the Marshall Islands.