Tokelau teens rescued after 50 days at sea
by TVNZ Media on 26 Nov 2010
Filo Filo, 15, Samuel Pelesa, 15, and Edward Nasau, 14, on board the San Nikunau with the craft on which they spent 50 days lost at sea. SW
Three Tokelauan teenagers missing at sea for 50 days have miraculously been rescued by a New Zealand fishing boat.
The three boys, Samuel Perez and Filo Filo, both 15, and Edward Nasau, 14, went missing from the atoll of Atafu on October 5.
There are reports they survived by eating coconuts at the start of the ordeal and a solitary raw seagull which they managed to catch after it landed on their small aluminium boat.
They had been drinking rainwater, but that ran out two days before they were rescued.
The very badly sunburned boys had been given up for dead by the Atafu community, who held a memorial service after an extensive search involving an RNZAF Orion failed to find them.
First Mate of the San Nikuna, Tai Fredricsen, of the Bay of Islands, said it was a 'miracle' the boys were found, especially considering that his fishing boat was sailing in an area it usually did not travel into.
When they were found, the boys had drifted 1300 kilometres to a little-travelled part of the Pacific just west of Uvea in the French territory of Wallis and Futuna and north east of Fiji.
Fredricsen said the boys started waving frantically as they got to within a mile of their small speed boat.
They were in surprisingly good spirits after so long at sea and were nursed back to health with small portions of fruit and water and bandaging for skin which had been damaged by spending so long in the open.
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