October 10,
2018 by Cecil Morella
It reads
like a modern day take on 'The Old Man and the Sea'—five Filipino fishermen
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 six-foot (1.8 metre)
marlin punctured their boat's
wooden hull with its giant bill, vessel master Jimmy Batiller told AFP on
Wednesday.
Their
12-metre boat quickly dipped beneath the waves in the early evening of October
3, leaving the crew with little drinking water or food until their eventual
rescue by the US Navy on Monday.
"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 create 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," said Batiller, who has
since been reunited with his family in Subic, a port about 80 kilometres (50
miles) northwest of Manila.
Lucky to
be alive
The US
Navy said the men were lucky to survive, especially given the crew said they
had drunk seawater.
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