WASHINGTON, May 2: Two teenagers who drifted at sea for six days in a small boat without food or water recounted on Monday how they prayed to be rescued from the shark-infested waters of the Atlantic. Josh Long, 17, and Troy Driscoll, 15, were found on Saturday off Cape Fear in North Carolina, having drifted for more than 160 kilometres. They were sunburned, exhausted and dehydrated but otherwise unharmed and were soon able to tell of their adventure.

The pair caught some jellyfish, which they ate raw, and went swimming to cool their bodies but had to watch out for the many sharks. “Basically, I thought I would never see my family again,” Long told CBS television from his hospital bed. “I just prayed every day that God would send me home or take me to heaven.” “There’s always sharks everywhere,” Long added on CNN television.

Because they had no fresh water, the two would gargle with sea water. “The only thing we could do with the water was gargle salt water and spit it out. And it drizzled one night, and we licked water off the deck, trying to get something in us. So that’s all we had.”

The teenagers had been aiming to reach a sandspit during a holiday at Sullivan’s Island, South Carolina. The boat drifted outside a zone patrolled by the US Coast Guard and the two were eventually found by a fishing boat.—AFP