As a young bloke growing up in Armidale, my step-dad told me the story about “The Little Boy Lost” in the bush around Armidale in the nineteen sixties. A massive search was carried out, and miraculously, the little boy was found alive.
Little did I know the same thing would one day happen to me. I would be “lost”, not in the Australian bush, but in the shark-infested waters of the Pacific, off the island of Kiribati. With my uncle, Koraubara and friend, Taea, we drifted for forty-six days in a four-metre aluminium “tinnie” , facing the daily threat of death in the perilous waters.
This is the story of those days at sea, and of friends and family who never gave up hope that I, like the “little boy lost”, would be found alive.
I’m about to take you on a trip through my life. Sometimes you may feel like hanging onto the sides, cursing and yelling, or maybe you won’t know whether to laugh or cry. My advice is to climb aboard, and be willing to take the rough with the smooth.
—Ben Tooki