A teenager from Indonesia working as the solo lamp keeper aboard a wooden raft was rescued just off the coast of Guam after drifting in the ocean for seven weeks, reports theJakarta Post.
“I thought I will never meet my parents again, so I just prayed every day,” Adilang told theAssociated Press.
According to the AP, Adilang’s six-month contract with his employer required him to use a lamp at night to capture fish. It is a lonely job, they note, as the rompongs are positioned so far out into the ocean that they can’t be seen from shore, and other rafts are miles away. Supplies are usually dropped off once every seven days, and he was only left with a gas stove, utensils and a generator.
“I was on the raft for one month and 18 days. My food ran out after the first week,” said Adilang.
CONSULATE GENERAL OF INDONESIA IN OSAKA HANDOUT/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock
“I could only pray that the shark went away,” he toldTribunManado news, according toNBC.
“Aldi said he had been scared and often cried while adrift,” Fajar Firdaus, a diplomat at the embassy in Japan, told theJakartaPost. “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, a Panamanian-flagged vessel spotted Adilang off the coast of Guam, almost 1,200 miles from his original position. Adilang used his walkie-talkie to radio “help” to alert the crew, who fed him and cut his hair once they got him aboard.
The vessel transported Adilang to Japan (their original destination), and he was finally reunited with his family on September 8.
Adilang no longer wants to work on a rompong, he told the AP.
source: people.com
