NPR

19-Year-Old Survives 49 Days At Sea, After Floating Hut Drifts To Guam

After he ran out of cooking gas, Aldi Novel Adilang started using wood from his craft to cook fish. He drifted from Indonesia to waters around Guam.
Aldi Novel Adilang's floating fishing hut was spotted by a passing cargo ship, the MV Arpeggio, after drifting at sea for more than a month.

One of the biggest challenges of Aldi Novel Adilang's job was supposed to be boredom, as the sole caretaker of a wooden fishing hut miles out at sea. Instead, he was forced to survive more than a month on the ocean, after his hut lost its mooring and drifted from Indonesia to waters around Guam.

For 49 days, Aldi survived by stretching out his meager supplies, reportedly subsisting on fish more than 77 miles off Indonesia's coast. But the line anchoring the hut snapped in high winds on July 14, turning Aldi into a castaway.

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