Photo: Tai Fredricsen

Three boys had attempted to row the sixty miles between two small Pacific islands. Instead they became lost at sea and drifted  for fifty days across nearly 1,000 miles of ocean in a small aluminum dinghy, surviving on raw seagull and fish, until they were rescued yesterday.  The three boys, ages 14 and 15,  are reported to be in remarkably good health.

Three teenagers, who survived on raw seagull and fish, found alive after FIFTY DAYS adrift in tiny dinghy in Pacific Ocean

Three teenagers given up for dead nearly two months ago after going missing in the Pacific Ocean in a small boat have been found alive.

Rescue officials in New Zealand – which had sent a search aircraft into the vast ocean to look for the boys – had given up all hope of finding them.

But today the trio, Filo Filo and Samuel Perez, both 15, and 14-year-old Edward Nasau, from the tiny Atafu atoll, are resting on a tuna fishing boat.

Their frantic waving from their small aluminium dinghy was spotted by the crew.

‘It’s an absolute miracle they were seen’, said the first mate of the tuna boat, Tai Fredricsen.

‘They were drifting in an area where ships generally don’t go.’

The story of their extraordinary feat of survival emerged just 24 hours after New Zealand began mourning the deaths of 29 trapped coal miners.

The boys were found north east of Fiji after drifting across nearly 1,000 miles of ocean from the tiny Atafu atoll, which is part of the New Zealand-administered Tokelau island group.

Very thin, parched and badly sunburned, they were otherwise in relatively good health.

The crew of the tuna boat, the San Nikunau, fed them and treated their sunburn and they are expected to reach Fiji later today.

For fifty days they had survived on raw fish they had managed to catch and had also eaten a raw seagull that had landed on their aluminium boat.

A few rain squalls had provided some water but in the last three days before they were spotted they were so desperate for something to drink they had started to drink the sea water – ‘the worst thing they could have done’, said Mr Fredricsen.

‘They asked me if it had been all right to eat the sea bird raw and I told them that was a good idea – better than the raw fish which would have added to their thirst’.

The boys had become lost at sea after attempting to row nearly 60 miles between two small islands.

Thanks to Julian Stockwin for tweeting about the story.