The Tongan Castaways – 15 months on a deserted island

North-east of Australia lays a series of small islands in the Pacific comprising several countries. One of these countries is called Tonga and is formed of a collection of small islands that has a population of just over 100,000 people and is tropical in climate, boasting excellent fishing and beautiful beaches.

(Tonga – A small tropical island located in the heart of the south pacific)

The year was 1965 and a group of six friends were bored with their strict daily routine at the Catholic boarding school they were living at and ran away for the day. They made their way to the coast and stole a 24-foot (7.3 m) fishing boat and quickly loaded it up with supplies, which included two sacks of bananas and a few coconuts. They set sail and traveled about 5 miles north of the main island and dropped the anchor so they could spend the night there.

During the night they were caught in a storm which broke the anchor rope and pushed them in a southwest direction. The rudder and sails were quickly destroyed by the high winds and they were completely powerless to stop themselves from being taken by the direction of the storm.

They drifted for the next eight days over a distance of about 320 km (200 mi). During the voyage, they collected rainwater in coconut shells and survived off the bananas they had, though the food wasn’t nearly enough to keep them properly fed. On the 8th day, they spotted land in the form of a small island called Ata, but they were too far away from it and there was no way of controlling the boat.

They grabbed planks from the boat to help them swim and jumped into the water. They spent the next 36 hours swimming toward the island, laying on the planks and kicking themselves forward. They all made it safely to land but found themselves barely able to stand and severely dehydrated. The island was completely uninhabited and there was no way to find anyone who could help them.

(Ata island – Due to its steep terrain, lack of farmland and remote location, it still remains uninhabited today)

Initially, they resorted to catching seabirds who lived on the coast and drank their blood as a substitute for water. They were able to find small amounts of rainwater that had been collected in plants and later hollowed out tree trunks to collect bigger amounts. The coast seemed like the safest place to stay because the seabirds were easy to catch and they had access to seafood, plus it was also the most likely place someone would see them if they passed the island.

They stayed close to the coast for about three months before deciding to explore the rest of the island, and after a two-day climb, they finally reached the summit of the dormant volcano. This expedition was the luckiest idea they had because in the crater of the volcano was a long deserted village that had been built and abandoned sometime during the 1800s.

They found tools and useful equipment, along with several flocks of chickens that had been left on the island and had since gone wild. They began work on repairing the village as best they could and even started their own garden and built coops to keep the chickens in. They divided the labor between the various tasks and always worked in pairs for safety, which worked so well that they even had time to build a makeshift guitar and write five different songs they would sing in the evenings to lift their spirits.

The only attempt they made to escape the island was when they built a raft from logs and branches lashed together with vines. They set off from the south side of the island but didn’t get more than a mile before the raft fell apart, forcing them to swim back and abandon any future attempts to leave. It was quite lucky that this happened because the group later said they thought they were somewhere near Samoa, which meant they would have been sailing directly into the open ocean.

The boys stayed on the island in their village for 15 long months until on 11 September 1966, an Australian fishing boat captain called Peter Warner sailed close enough to the island to notice patches of burned grass on the cliffs. He sailed closer and took a look through his binoculars which revealed a group of naked boys on the beach. He cautiously approached and one of them swam over and explained in English that they were marooned there.

Warner was skeptical of their story and radioed in for confirmation, giving their names to the Coast Guard who, after a 20-minute wait, replied with information that they had long been presumed dead, and funerals were even held for them. The group of six climbed on board the fishing ship and they were finally taken back to safety, and a huge celebration was held upon their return.

All six of the group were in surprisingly good condition and were hired as a crew to work on one of Warner’s fishing boats. They were all briefly arrested for the theft of the boat they stole at the start of their experience, but after a compensation payment to the owner of the boat by Warner, all charges were dropped.