Daily Prayers

"I was on the raft for one month and 18 days. My food ran out after the first week. I had to soak my clothes in the sea, then I squeezed and drank the water."
"I thought I will never meet my parents again, so I just prayed every day."
"It was early morning on August 31 when I saw the ship and I lighted up the lamp and shouted 'help!' using the HT [handy-talky portable radio]."
"The ship had passed about one mile but then it turned to me. Might be because I used the English word [help]. Then they talked on the HT [hand-held radio]."
Aldi Novel Adilang, 18, Jakarta, Indonesia

"Aldi said he had been scared and often cried when adrift."
"Every time he saw a large ship, he said he was hopeful, but more than ten ships passed him, and none of them stopped."
Fajar Firdaus, Indonesian diplomat, Osaka, Japan

(Indonesian Consulate General Osaka/Facebook)

Adilang worked as a lamp lighter on a rompong since the time he was sixteen years of age. The rompong, a raft of wood topped by a hut is lit at night to attract ocean fish to the shoreline of Indonesia's coastal area of North Sulawesi, an aid to local fishermen whose living is crucial to the general diet of the population. Lamp lighters lead a solitary existence; the fishing rafts are moored at least 100 kilometres offshore, with no paddle, no engine, set dozens of kilometres apart.

The rafts are anchored with ropes but occasionally they break, from relentless friction. Once weekly supplies, fuel for a generator, food and any other necessities are dropped off for the minders who communicate with fishing boats via a hand-held radio they are supplied with. Work contracts are for six-month periods. For their efforts, the fish minders earn $130 monthly, a considerable assist to a large family whose children are expected to help support the family income.

Adilang's fish trap went adrift on the Pacific Ocean when its moorings slipped. To survive, he caught fish, cooking them by using the wooden fences along the top of the rompong to make cooking fires. Aspirants to the job must prove they are capable of fending for themselves and this young man certainly did. Ten ships passed the stranded youth and despite his efforts to bring his plight to their attention, none responded, "unaware of my ordeal", he explained. There were days with no rain, and that's when Adilang drank seawater.

After fifty days at sea the Panamanian-flagged MV Arpeggio off the island of Guam -- some 1,920 kilometre from where Adilang's wooden fish trap came loose -- stopped to rescue the boy. Although this was the third time his raft had come loose and drifted, on the other two occasions the raft had been rescued by the ship of the owner of the 50 rafts. When Adilang saw the ship passing he once again attempted to draw the attention of its crew as he had done with the previous ships that had failed to notice his efforts.

(ICGO/Facebook)

Once he had succeeded in alerting the crew of the ship to his presence, rescue was complicated by the condition of the ocean, assailed by high waves -- a completely agitated surface. The Arpeggio's crew threw a rope as the tanker circled around the raft. The rope was beyond Adilang's grasp, leading him in desperation to leap into the water. In his weakened condition he barely managed to grasp the rope. Eventually a member of the Arpeggio's crew was able to grasp his hand, pulling him to safety.

Once aboard and safe, the Arpeggio contacted the Indonesian mission in Japan when the ship docked and officials from the Osaka consulate arrived to take the boy into their custody on September 6, returning him to Indonesia two days later. The youngest son of four siblings, Adilang has decided that rompong work as a lamp lighter attracting fish is not a career he plans to carry on with. "My parents agree", he said.

Adilang (in white T-shirt) reunited with his family (ICGO/Facebook)