SYDNEY: An Australian sailor and his dog have been rescued after two months adrift in the Pacific Ocean, surviving the ordeal by drinking rainwater and snacking on raw fish.

Tim Shaddock and his dog Bella set off in a catamaran from Mexico’s seaside city of La Paz in April, and planned to sail about 6,000 kilometres before dropping anchor in tropical French Polynesia. But they soon found themselves stranded in the vast Pacific Ocean after rough seas damaged the vessel and knocked out its electronics.

In an unlikely rescue reminiscent of the Tom Hanks movie “Cast Away”, the bedraggled amateur yachtsman was plucked from the water two months later by a Mexican tuna trawler.

“I’ve just got fishing gear,” he told one of his rescuers, in a video obtained by Australia’s Nine News. Sporting a shaggy beard, 51-year-old Shaddock was visibly gaunt after surviving on the spartan seafood diet — but said he otherwise felt “in very good health”.

“I have been through a very difficult ordeal at sea,” he said in a separate video, obtained by Nine News.

“I’m just needing rest and good food because I’ve been alone at sea a long time.” Shaddock and Bella would soon be ferried back to Mexico, according to the outlet.

Published in Dawn, July 18th, 2023