Weeks adrift with a fish and a prayer

Haloti Molitika says the men are tired and want to get home to their families. Picture / David Lucas

The only food to keep four Tongan fishermen alive as they drifted for three weeks in the Pacific was a 1.5m mahimahi, caught on an unbaited hook, dried in the sun and carefully rationed over two weeks.

But the quartet had spiritual sustenance, says Methodist pastor Haloti Molitika, 52 - even when the four men were weak, they had prayer sessions four times a day.

"Only one person could keep us going - almighty God," said a "very tired" Mr Molitika yesterday, after he and his companions - Sione Afu, a teacher, 31; Lata Folau, 38; and Kiloka Pepa, 36, both subsistence fishermen - had a check-up at a Suva medical centre.

The four, all of Matuku in the Tongan Haapai group, were making a short trip between two islands on January 19 when their 7m boat's engine broke down. They had no tools, no emergency equipment and no supplies - "no nothing", says Mr Molitika - and despite trying to fashion a sail out of tarpaulin, started drifting.

The wooden boat had a canopy to protect them from the sun and a chillybin, and the men were able to collect rainwater.

Being at close quarters while so anxious about their survival was "really hard", said Mr Molitika. To try to keep their spirits up the men had four prayer sessions a day: at 6am, noon, 6pm and midnight.

About a week into their ordeal the men caught a mahimahi on an unbaited hook; the species tends to hang around surface objects. Dried and strictly rationed, there was still some fish left on Friday around 1.40pm when a Fijian fishing trawler, the 31m Solander IV, spotted the boat 370km south of Fiji.

The men had raised a black lavalava on top of a piece of wood to attract attention.

The captain of the Solander IV, Meli Lganimoce, said the men, clad only in lavalavas or shorts, were so weak once hauled aboard that they staggered "like drunks".

"I could see the happiness in their faces. They had tears in their eyes - they were crying of joy."

The men said they all lost weight, said Mr Loganimoce, but were not skeletal. Crew members tended the men's minor injuries and they were were urged to sleep, he said, but none of them could.

The trip back to Suva took the best part of two days and on Suva's dock on Sunday, television cameras were waiting.

David Lucas, manager of fishing company Solander Pacific, said the men had a final prayer session on the boat before disembarking.

The men were lodged in police barracks and yesterday had medical checks.

"Everything is fine, thank God for that. At the moment we are so tired, and we want to get back home to our families," said Mr Molitika, who expects the group will set off for home today.

New Zealand's Rescue Co-ordination Centre had sent an Air Force Orion into the search area for two days, but recalled it after nothing was found.