Teenager Survives 49 Days Adrift on Fishing Shack

Simon Veazey
9/24/2018
Updated:
9/24/2018

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.

Adilang, 19, was working on a floating fish trap with a tiny wooden hut when it was set adrift on July 14, according to the Indonesian consul general in Osaka in a statement on Sept. 14.

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.

Aldi Novel Adilang (R), 19, poses with an Indonesian consular official upon landing in Japan after being stranded for 49 days in Guam waters. (KJRI Osaka/Facebook)
Aldi Novel Adilang (R), 19, poses with an Indonesian consular official upon landing in Japan after being stranded for 49 days in Guam waters. (KJRI Osaka/Facebook)

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.

The Indonesian consul general in Osaka, Mirza Nurhidayat, said that Adilang had been minding a floating fish trap called a “rompong," equipped with a gas stove, cooking utensils, and a generator but with no engine or paddle.
“After he ran out of the cooking gas, he burned the rompong’s wooden fences to make a fire for cooking. He drank by sipping water from his clothes that had been wetted by sea water,” Nurhidayat told the Jakarta Post. 

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.

Aldi Adilang is tended to onboard the Arpeggio, after being rescued from a fishing hut drifting in the Pacific, on Aug. 31, 2018. (KJRI Osaka/Facebook)
Aldi Adilang is tended to onboard the Arpeggio, after being rescued from a fishing hut drifting in the Pacific, on Aug. 31, 2018. (KJRI Osaka/Facebook)
On Aug. 31, a cargo ship headed for Japan, the Arpeggio, sailed past. But the crew failed to spot the hut or the teenager waving a flag he had fashioned.

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.

Aldi Novel Adilang disembarks the Arpeggio in Japan after it rescued him from Guam waters in the Pacific on Aug. 31, 2018. (KJRI Osaka/Facebook)
Aldi Novel Adilang disembarks the Arpeggio in Japan after it rescued him from Guam waters in the Pacific on Aug. 31, 2018. (KJRI Osaka/Facebook)

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.

“I can only pray and the shark goes,” he was quoted as saying by TribunManado.co.id.
Simon Veazey is a UK-based journalist who has reported for The Epoch Times since 2006 on various beats, from in-depth coverage of British and European politics to web-based writing on breaking news.
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