The Prodigal Teen SailorsPerhaps most of you already have caught this wonderful Thanksgiving story on the news or in the local paper, but just in case: three teenaged boys from Tokelau, a collection of atolls north of Samoa that is part of New Zealand's territory, were picked up alive near Fiji after fifty days adrift in a 12-foot aluminum boat. That's 800 miles. They ate coconuts, raw flying fish, and one seabird, and drank rainwater that they managed to collect. Their village of 500 people had already held memorial services for them after the New Zealand Air Force could find no trace.
I hope they'll be set for life once they sell their story. It's not quite Men Against the Sea, which was a 3,600-mile drift commanded by Captain Bligh and 19 men in a 23-foot boat, which ultimately reached safety in Batavia in the Dutch East Indies. Another riveting tale of survival in a small open boat is supposed to have inspired Moby Dick. In 1820-21, several Nantucket whalers in the South Pacific survived a sperm whale's destruction of their ship the Essex, then made it to Chile in an open boat after four months at sea and some cannibalism.
Still, 800 miles in a small open boat in the Pacific is quite a feat for anyone, especially such young men.
"For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found."
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