LUCKY TO SURVIVE Five Filipino fishermen are rescued by the USNS Wally Schirra as their makeshift raft drifts in the South China Sea for more than a week in this photo taken on Wednesday. —AFP
It reads like a modern-day take on Ernest Hemingway’s “The Old Man and the Sea”: Five Filipino fishermen are cast adrift for days on a makeshift raft after a huge marlin sinks their boat.
The men were fishing in the South China Sea last week when a 1.8-meter-long marlin punctured their boat’s wooden hull with its giant bill, vessel master Jimmy Batiller told Agence France-Presse (AFP) on Wednesday.
Their 12-meter boat quickly dipped beneath the waves in the early evening of Oct. 3, leaving the crew with little drinking water or food until their eventual rescue by the US Navy on Monday.
2 big holes
“It (the fish) hit the bottom of our boat, leaving two big holes. We suspect it was chasing a smaller fish. It swam around the sinking boat for a while, apparently disorientated,” Batiller said.
The fishermen salvaged what they could, removing the outriggers, planks and barrels to build a makeshift raft.
“Our water ran out after two days. We waved at passing commercial vessels, but no one came to rescue us. But we did not lose hope,” the 42-year-old father of one said, adding the crew also ate raw rice and drank some seawater.
“When we were rescued, that was when our tears fell,” added Batiller, who has since been reunited with his family in Subic, a port about 80 kilometers northwest of Manila.
US Navy to the rescue
The US Navy said the fishermen were lucky to survive, especially because they had drunk seawater.
“On average, death results two to three days after a diet of drinking undiluted seawater or urine in survival-at-sea events as it takes more water than is consumed for the body to process the waste and salt out of the kidneys,” said Leon Hadley, the civilian chief mate from the ship which conducted the rescue, the USNS Wally Schirra.
“Luckily, we were going at a slow enough speed to have spotted the fishermen,” added the Wally Schirra’s master Keith Sauls.
“The individuals were waving their arms and a flag in the air. They were also flashing a white light that was previously thought to be fishing buoy,” Sauls said in an account carried by the Defense Visual Information Distribution Service.
Fastest, strongest predators
The blue marlin is one of the open ocean’s fastest, strongest predators and is also one of the largest species of bony fishes.
The blue marlin can grow up to 5 meters in length and weigh as much as 820 kilograms.
It is known for its long bill that grows from the front of its head which it uses to stun prey.
“This is the first such incident we have encountered here. Most of the time it’s bad weather sinking fishermen’s boats in the open seas,” Subic coast guard operations officer Erman Besana told AFP.
Despite the near-death experience, Batiller said he and his crew planned to go back to sea after a few days’ rest, provided they find a new boat.
“This is our job,” he added.