Surviving 49 days adrift on the open sea without a motor or a paddle is a tall task for anyone. Thankfully for one teen who was recently cast over 1,500 miles from home, he had a Bible, which he credits for stopping him from killing himself.
The Jakarta Post reported on the story of 18-year-old Aldi Novel Adilang.
Adilang worked as a lamp keeper on a floating fish trap (known in the region as a rompong) out in the middle of the Pacific Ocean about 80 miles from his homeland of Manado, Indonesia.
The job is a lonely one. His responsibility was to keep the lamps on the rompong lit at night so fish would be drawn to the trap. The fish would be collected by boat once per week and during this time, Adilang would be given a refill of supplies, food and drinking water.
But on July 14, Adilang’s rompong broke loose from its moorings due to heavy winds and Adilang and his floating wooden hut were cast hundreds of miles north toward the U.S. island territory of Guam over the next seven weeks.
Over the 49-day journey, at least 10 ships cruised past Adilang but he wasn’t spotted despite his desperate pleas for help.
Fortunately, he was eventually discovered by a vessel carrying Panama flags called the Arpeggio and he was rescued in Guam waters.
“Aldi said he had been scared and often cried while adrift,” Fajar Firdaus, a diplomate at the Indonesian consulate in Osaka, Japan, told Jakarta Post.
After the Arpeggio crew pulled the weakened Adilang onboard on Aug. 31, the ship was told by Guam’s coast guard to take Adilang to Tokuyama, Japan, Indonesian consul general Mirza Nurhidayat…
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