The Tongan Castaways of Ata Island | Surviving with one of the six boys

 

A few years ago I had one of the best experience of my life. I marooned myself on a desert island with Kolo Fekitoa one of the six castaways of Ata. And one of the last real castaways alive. You can watch this teaser of the documentary we will launch this summer. Kolo and me made a guitar from coconuts as they did in 1965. We sang the songs they used to sing (Kolo was the musician of the six), I found in the jungle the pot where they used to cook….

Ata is an uninhabited island located in the middle of the ocean near the remote archipelago of Tonga. Ata is one of the few real desert islands where human doesn’t get even close.

The survival of six Tongan teenagers boys back in 1965 became a hit in Australia news reports. Here you can watch the old documentary from 1966.

 

 

 

An strordinary story of human survival. Six boys stole a 25 foot whaling boat and the first night at night lost the sails and rudder in a storm. They lost the little food they carried. And they had to survive adrift for days without water.

On the 8^th day they saw an island at the distance. They were smashed against the rocks and swam to the beach. They had no idea where they were on that night. The name of the island was ATA. One hundred nautical miles from Tonga. They had to survive for 15 months until they were discovered by chance. An Australian fishing boat, the Just David, was looking for new crayfish grounds. They put down some traps without much success. To the crew surprise six naked boys screeming for attention swam straight to the boat and they told the story.

 

 

 

 

The skipper Peter Warner send a message to a media contact in Sydney. He thought this would make a good story. So the reunion with their families were recorded to cameras.  They were rescue by Australian fishing boat, Just David.

 

After recovering our empty cray pots, we decided to have a closer look and investigate the burned out patches on this stark “steep to” island. We approached first the eastern face and then rounded the northern corner to investigate the western lee side. Everywhere thick clouds of screaming seabirds of all types swirled around the cliffs and over our small vessel. From the crows nest, our look out cried

 

“I can hear a human voice yelling”. 

“Nonsense “

said I “it’s only screaming seabirds,” as we steamed slow ahead. Next moment we

 

spotted a brown body hurtling down a cliff path and diving into the surf. He looked

wild and screamed loud bloodcurdling noises. With no clothes at all, and hair grown into a huge black top-heavy “gollywog” bush, the healthy youngster swam towards us using the style of the Australian crawl. I ordered the crew to load the rifles below and stand by to repel boarders because now a few more brown figures were seen swimming towards us. My first thoughts were, that this place must be some be some sort of prison island for desperate Tongan thugs and outcasts. Exile was a common practice in Polynesia, sometimes in a leaky canoe.

 

After his Olympic winning swim from the shore, a big pearly white smile from the kid alongside with the exploded hair do, calmed my nerves.  We lowered the boarding ladder and the 18-year-old heaved himself aboard, stark naked, and announced in perfect aristocratic English

 “My name is Steven. There are 6 of us and we estimate we have been here between one and two years”.

 

 

Good story thought I but I don’t believe it. By this time the others had boarded and

introduced themselves we continued to drift and I continued to think. Even if they

were all young jailbirds, we did not wish to scare them. Their explanation

continued. They alleged that 5 of them came from the Haapai group of islands in

Tonga, where fish is a staple daily diet, but had all been sent as boarders at St

Andrews Anglican high School in Nuku’alofa the capital of Tonga. The food at the

school was so horrible, that they had “borrowed’ a long boat one evening and sailed out to catch some fish.

 

This was the official story that they all stuck to for the time being. Details of this 8 day survival trip were explained to us during the first night they slept on ‘Just

David”. But first we had to consider what to do with 6 dripping and very healthy

boys in the after cockpit. We figured that if their story was indeed true, they had

spent about 18 months on the island. Still suspicious, I wrote down the names of the

6 with spelling help from them. Then I raised Nuku’alofa Radio on short wave and

after sorting out a working frequency, asked the shore operator to contact St

Andrews college by phone and ask the staff if they had the 6 named boys as students

18 months ago.   The Tongan operator asked me to stand-by whilst he investigated. Meanwhile our

cook had prepared our daily meal, which the boys shared with us and immediately

vomited up, not being used to European style food for so long.

 

A very emotional and tearful Nuku’alofa Radio operator came back on the air and announced

That St Andrew’s College confirmed that 5 of the 6 named boys were students at the

school but they all had been given up as dead long ago when, the open boat,  missing from

its anchorage, never returned. One father had spent months looking for them on uninhabited islands but finally resigned himself to their disappearance. Funeral services for all 6 boys had been held, but miraculously we had found them alive and very healthy.

 

We all relaxed, unloaded the firearms, and gave some clothes to our new friends.

A temporary anchorage was found and we resolved that next day, we would sail to

Nuku’alofa. But first we were to be given a guided tour of the Island tomorrow and tonight listen to the story of the 8 day drift. the board, and many more to come.

Explained Peter Warner in his memories.

 

MORE DETAILS COMING SOON