Off The Record
How Six Kids Teens Survived After Being Trapped For 15 Months On A Deserted Island
After being shipwrecked on a deserted island, a group of six teens not only survived for over a year, but they also managed to escape their terrible ordeal.
A group of guys, ages 13 to 19, stole a traditional whaling boat and fled their boarding school on Tongatapu, an island in Tonga in the South Pacific Ocean, in June 1965.
Less than 500 miles from Tonga, they had sailed to Fiji. However, catastrophe came when a storm ripped their anchor rope when they were spending the night about five miles from home.
For eight torturous days, stormy weather kept their boat afloat until they washed up on the abandoned volcanic island of ‘Ata.
In a subsequent VICE podcast, Mano, whose real name is Sione Filipe Totau, recalled the encounter.
According to Mano, the boys got to the island late at night, and he offered to get off the boat and check out what was there.
“I jumped off the boat and swam through the waves. When I got to the shore, I saw the whole island was twisting around,” he explained.
“But it wasn’t the island; it was me. Everything was spinning after eight days without food or water. Finally, after catching my breath, I called out to the boys, ‘Hey, hey, I’m here!'”
Mano claimed that after eight days, he found a piece of soaking-wet wood and was able to receive his first sip of water.
According to Mano, the boys ‘felt so alive’ despite the dreadful circumstances.
“We’d stepped on dry land, and that gave us far more hope than when we were drifting out at sea,” he said.
Although it took them around three months to learn how to hunt and create a fire, they were able to subsist by fishing, robbing seabird nests, drinking their blood, and eating raw eggs.
The group’s circumstances changed when they were able to ascend onto the main plateau of the island after regaining some strength.
An old clay pot, a machete, and several hens that had been abandoned by a small Tongan community prior to their abduction and enslavement were discovered here.
However, the teenagers cooperated to live rather than sinking into a dystopian Lord of the Flies-style nightmare.
They constructed a lookout point for passing ships, a tiny gym, a protected tent made of coconut leaves, and even tools and carvings to keep themselves busy.
Mano added: “[W]e started organising everything in a roster: how to keep the fire, how to say our prayers, along with taking care of the banana palms. We all worked together as though we’d live on the island for a long time.”
An Australian explorer named Peter Warner suddenly rescued them after they had been stuck for 15 months.
John Carnemolla, a photographer from Sydney, then returned to the island with the lads to check on their survival.
The Dutch historian Rutger Bregman then recounted their tale of cooperation and survival. In his book, he compared this real-life survival story to the fictional Lord of the Flies and made the case that it demonstrated that people are more cooperative than self-interested.
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