A teenager survived 49 days at sea after his fishing shack was torn from its moorings and drifted 1,600 miles across the Pacific Ocean.
Details of the odyssey emerged as Aldi Adilang was finally reunited with his family at their remote coastal village in Indonesia, after being rescued near the island of Guam by a passing ship heading for Japan.
With no means of propulsion, Lang was at the mercy of the currents and wind, surviving by fishing after his own food supplies ran out in a few days.
He saw over 10 ships pass him by, until finally, on Aug. 31, after 49 days, he managed to attract the attention of a passing vessel, sparking a dramatic rescue in high waves.
After he ran out of food supplies, surviving by fishing as strong winds blew his hut further from home, he tried to hail passing ships.
“Every time he saw a large ship, he said, he was hopeful, but more than 10 ships had sailed past him, none of them stopped or saw Aldi,” said another diplomat, Fajar Firdaus.
Rescue in High Wind and Waves
Then Adilang followed the advice a friend had once given, tuning his radio to a specific frequency for hailing large ships.It worked.
The crew caught his distress signal and turned the boat around.
But according to Firdaus the waves were high that day, and the rescue was not straightforward. The Arpeggio had difficulty getting close to Aldi.
After circling four times, when they eventually threw a rope to help him, it fell short of his rompong.
“Aldi then decided to jump into the sea to grab the rope, while the waves and wind rocked him,” Firdaus said.
Even before being set adrift, Adilang existence was a lonely one.
He was contracted for six months to light lamps around the rompong every night to attract fish, his only human contact coming once a week, when someone came to empty his fish trap and replenish his supplies.
Local media reported that Adilang said that in the mornings he caught fish, and in the afternoons he lay down on the raft and read the Bible.
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