Aldi Novel Adilang said he ran out of food within a week and survived on fish and seawater he strained through his clothing.
The 18-year-old added that he turned on a lamp every time he sighted a ship and cannot remember how many passed by “unaware of my ordeal”.
Interviewed by local news portal TribunManado, Aldi said he thought he “was going to die out there”. He said at one point he became suicidal and considered jumping into the ocean, but remembered his parents’ advice to pray in times of distress. He had a bible on board so he did.
He was rescued by a Panamanian-flagged vessel off Guam on August 31, about 1,200 miles from his original location, and returned to Indonesia with officials earlier this month, according to the Indonesian consulate in Osaka, Japan.
The teenager had been employed since the age of 16 in one of the world’s loneliest jobs: lamp lighter on a rompong – a wooden fishing raft with a hut on top – moored about 78 miles off the coast of North Sulawesi.
The coastline is not visible from the fishing rafts and the numerous rompong are miles apart from one another, said Mr Adilang’s mother, Met Kahiking.
Supplies are dropped off to the light keepers about once a week.
“I was on the raft for one month and 18 days. My food ran out after the first week,” said Mr Adilang.
When it did not rain for…
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