Number 9: Harrison Okene Harrison Okene survived 60 hours in the submerged
Jackson 4, a Nigerian boat that capsized in the Atlantic in 2013. He is undoubtedly one
of the luckiest people alive on the planet. Okene, the ship’s cook, managed to find
a large air pocket and survived nearly three days immersed in freezing water with only
a lone Coca Cola to sustain him. When divers probed the Jackson 4, it was to look for bodies.
They never imagined that they would find a survivor. Okene’s recollection of his torturous
time in the belly of the Jackson 4 would make anyone’s skin crawl. It was pitch-black,
freezing cold, and full of strange sounds. Okene credits his faith for helping him find
the mental strength to soldier on. Number 8: Filo Filo, Etueni Nasau and Samu
Pelesa In 2010, three teenage boys set out to sea
off the tiny isle of Tokelau in the Pacific Ocean, but what was supposed to be a routine
trip turned disastrous. Filo Filo, Etueni Nasau, and Samu Pelesa were lost at sea for
a full 50 days or nearly two months, and remarkably all of them survived. The problems started
when the teenagers got lost, drifting out to sea on their tiny boat. Unable to find
the shore, they survived on their store of water, and when that ran out, they drank rainwater.
As the weeks went on, the boys caught birds for food and managed to cling to their lives,
but just barely. Back home, a memorial service was held for the boys because nobody could
have imagined that they would be able to survive the unforgiving conditions of the raw Pacific
Ocean. Defying all odds, the three boys were finally rescued by a fishing boat near Samoa.
Their total trip? 500 miles of deep ocean.
Number 7: Jesus Eduardo Vidana, Lucio Rendon and Salvador Ordonez
For 9 long months, Jesus Eduardo Vidana, Lucio Rendon, and Salvador Ordonez endured unimaginable
suffering on the Pacific Ocean. How these men survived nearly a year at sea is anyone’s
guess! The trio was part of an ill-fated shark fishing trip that took them 5,000 miles across
the deep sea when their boat ran out of fuel, and they were left drifting aimlessly in strange
waters. Their original starting point was Mexico’s Port of San Blas, but they wound
up in Taiwanese waters, having covered thousands of miles of ocean. The men were part of a
larger crew, but the other two members perished when they couldn’t eat the only food available;
raw fish and birds. Although suspicions of cannibalism swirled around the men’s story,
they insist that they just dumped the bodies overseas. But realistically, what happened
during those harrowing nine months is anyone’s guess.
Number 6: Jose Salvador Alvarenga For 13 grueling months between 2012 and 2014,
Jose Salvador Alvarenga was drifting around in the Pacific Ocean with little to no hope
of survival. The fact that he beat the odds at all is more than impressive; it’s fairly
close to miraculous. When Alvarenga left Mexico on a fishing trip in 2012, he could never
have anticipated the strange course of events that would alter his life forever. A freak
storm hit his fiberglass boat and sent him spinning far off course, away from the safety
of land and deep into the heart of the mighty Pacific. He traveled 5,000 miles across the
sea towards the Marshall Islands, where he was finally rescued a year later. How did
he manage to survive the journey? Alvarenga allegedly ate raw fish, birds, and turtles
and sustained himself on rainwater. When he set out for the trip, he had a companion named
Ezequiel Cordoba, who didn’t survive the ordeal. Although Alvarenga was accused of
cannibalism, he vehemently denies it to this day.
Number 5: Alexander Selkirk In 1704, Alexander Selkirk landed on a small
island near Chile with his merry band of British privateers, but the harmony did not last long.
Selkirk, along with his shipmates, was spending his time harassing Spanish ships on the coast
in an attempt to claim the coast for Britain. Upon arriving at the island, part of the Juan
Fernandez archipelago, Selkirk had serious concerns about whether the ship could make
it back to the United Kingdom. The rest of the crew disagreed and abandoned him on the
tiny isle with only a small heap of weapons, some food, rum, and tobacco. Selkirk’s own
pride and his foolish optimism would cost him dearly. He wound up spending 4 years and
a handful of months on the unnamed island. To add more misery to the already unfortunate
situation, Selkirk had to hide from Spanish forces every time they landed on the island,
patiently waiting for another British ship to appear on the horizon and save him. Eventually,
he was spotted and saved in 1709 and went on to become the inspiration for Robinson
Crusoe.
Number 4: Deborah Kiley and Brad Cavanagh Although Deborah Kiley and Brad Cavanagh’s
ordeal only lasted for 5 days, it earns a top spot on this list for the sheer challenges
that the pair encountered during their terrifying time at sea. It all started in October 1982,
when the Trashman, a luxury yacht, set off from Bar Harbor, Maine. Kiley and Cavanagh
were part of a few person crew tasked with bringing the Trashman to its new owner in
Florida. The fifth person on the ship, Meg Mooney, was the captain’s girlfriend. Tragically,
they hit a deadly snag in North Carolina when the Trashman got tangled up with a storm and
was literally torn to bits by the ocean. But...according to Kiley, trouble actually started much earlier
when she realized that John Lippoth, the ship’s captain, was perpetually drunk and seemed
to be afraid of the sea. Mark Adams, another member of the Trashman’s crew, was also
consistently drunk. When the worst possible situation happened, half the crew was blind
drunk, and the other half was powerless against the constant assault of the raging sea, which
was rising in 40 foot waves all around them. Although they managed to make it to a lifeboat,
they soon ran afoul of hundreds of great white sharks, who swarmed the lifeboat and eventually
consumed 3 of its 5 passengers. Kiley and Cavanagh were ultimately saved by a Russian
cargo ship, and their harrowing story has been popularized in movies, books, and film.
Number 3: Marguerite de la Rocque
Lifetime banishment to the Isle of Demons might seem like a pretty harsh punishment,
but that’s exactly what 16th century French noblewoman Marguerite de la Rocque got when
she dared to take an off-limits lover. The young, unmarried, and previously virginal
de la Rocque crossed the mighty Atlantic with a relative in 1542, with the goal of setting
up a colony in Canada. Things took a turn for the scandalous when de la Rocque started
a sexy tryst with a fellow passenger. As a result, the unvirtuous miss, her lover, and
a servant were sent to an island near the St. Lawrence Gulf and left to die in the harsh
Canadian winter. Incredibly, the group lived for sixteen months by building a small hut
and keeping the bears away by throwing rocks. As fate would have it, de la Rocque got pregnant
and gave birth on the lonely isle. Tragically, she lost her lover, servant, and child before
being rescued and sent back to France in 1544.
Number 2: Poon Lim For 133 days, Poon Lim survived solo at sea
on nothing but a life raft. The Chinese sailor was aboard the ill-fated SS Benlomond, a British
merchant ship traveling between Cape Town and New York City during the Second World
War. The boat was attacked and floundered, leaving Lim as the sole survivor of the carnage.
He bobbed in the water for two hours before finally finding a wooden raft, where he found
a handful of supplies and flares. Lim’s luck soured when his tenure at sea stretched
from days to weeks, and his tiny raft was hit by a storm. He lost his supplies and relied
on catching and killing birds to sustain himself. He even fashioned a makeshift hook and caught
a shark, drinking its blood to replenish himself. Eventually, Lim drifted across the Atlantic
Ocean towards Brazil, where he was rescued.
Number 1: Captain Oguri Jukichi and Otokichi Both Captain Oguri Jukichi and Otokichi hold
the Guinness World Record for surviving at sea the longest. This Japanese captain and
his crewmate managed to stay afloat and alive for well over a year. They drifted for a grand
total of 484 days, to be exact, and they did it before modern technology. What started
as a standard journey quickly became harrowing when Mother Nature took aim at the doomed
craft. Jukichi's ship was hit by a wicked storm in 1813, sending it spiraling off course
and drifting deep into the unforgiving waters of the Pacific Ocean. Although the ship was
damaged, it was still upright, but 12 of her members would die before they ever saw dry
land again. The vast majority of the men perished from scurvy, but Jukichi and Otokichi survived
by distilling seawater and eating soybeans until their ship made the slow journey across
the Pacific Ocean and eventually was rescued off the coast of California in March of 1815.
Thanks for watching! Would you rather have
to struggle against a great white shark onslaught with Deborah Kiley and Brad Cavanaugh or be
trapped in a submerged air bubble for 60 hours, like Harrison Okene? Let us know in the comments
section below.