Missing Indonesian Teen Found Adrift At Sea For 49 Days

An Indonesian teen was rescued at sea after having been found drifting onboard a fish trap for 49 days. He had been on the floating trap for the said number of days after having drifted away from home in North Sulawesi.

Aldi Adilang, 19, worked in Indonesia as lamp keeper. He had a floating fish trap assigned to him for work. Kuam News reported that a rope broke while the teen was working on board the trap. This was the beginning of his 49 days at sea. Luckily, a Panamanian vessel, the Arpeggio, managed to find him off the coast of Guam.

Aldi relayed that he survived all those days at sea by catching and eating fish from the sea. He also tried to subsist by drinking seawater. The Guam Coast Guard also said that they were informed of the rescue, but turned over the information to the Japan Coast Guard. The country had jurisdiction over the Arpeggio as it was headed for Japan at the time.

Aldi hailed from the coast of Manado, in the province of North Sulawesi. He was working on what was called a 'rompong.' Essentially, a romping looked like a small hut and was a device that corralled fish by floating on the waves. It used floats and was tethered to the seafloor by rope tied to a concrete block, which held the rompong in place.

Aldi said that he spent six months per contract. He was brought supplies at the end of each week by someone who visited, and in exchange, they harvested the fish. During the incident, he said that strong winds caused rough waters, which made the rompong move. This, in turn, strained on the rope, until it broke and he was set adrift at sea. He still managed to tell his friends on another rompong what happened to him before he moved farther away.

Fajar Firdaus, a diplomat at the Indonesian consulate in Osaka, further said that Aldi was scared. CNN noted that the teen was scared while he was adrift and that he "often cried." Fortunately, the waters he drifted on was a busy trade lane. Despite that, 10 ships had passed him by before he was rescued, with the other 10 ships failing to see the teen adrift on the rompong.