An Indonesian fisherman miraculously survived 49 days adrift on the ocean after his fishing hut was blown from its moorings.
Nineteen-year-old Aldi Novel Adilang was on the hut, called a rompong, which consisted of a small shack with a fishing trap about 175 kilometres from the coast when the rope securing it in place snapped on July 14.
He was found 49 days later by a Panamanian ship and brought to the Indonesian consul in Japan.
According to the Jakarta Post, Adilang’s job was to light lamps on the rompong at night with a power generator to attract fish. He was supposed to be on the vessel for six months and had worked there since he was 16, the Guardian reported.
Every week the owner of the rompong would bring him supplies. When the mooring snapped, Adilang only had a few days’ worth of food, fuel and clean water.
But he survived by lighting fires from parts of the wooden fence of the rompong, and “sipping water from his clothes that had been wetted by sea water,” Mirza Nurhidayat, the Indonesian consul general in Japan told the Post.
“Aldi said he had been scared and often cried while adrift,” Fajar Firdaus, another Indonesian official, said.
“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.”
Finally, on Aug. 31 the ship M.V. Arpeggio sailed by the rompong. When they didn’t see him waving for help, he turned the radio to a common frequency to get their attention.
The Post reports the water was too choppy to get close, so Adilang had to swim to the boat. Crewmembers threw a rope to bring him aboard.
He had travelled thousands of kilometres from his home in the province of North Sulawesi in Indonesia to the waters of Guam.
The ship was on its way to Japan, where it landed in Osaka on Sept 6. After being quarantined and going through Japanese customs, he was finally able to return home on Sept. 8.
“Currently Aldi has gathered with his family in Wori, Manado, and is in good health,” the Indonesian consulate in Osaka wrote on Facebook.
They also thanked everyone who helped get Adilang home safely.
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