A 39-year-old California sailor was rescued last week after spending weeks stranded in the Pacific Ocean.
Kai Sato's solo voyage from Catalina Island to Hawaii took a dangerous turn when his boat mast broke two weeks into the trip.
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The mechanical failure left his sailboat disabled. Sato then exhausted his fuel while trying to motor back toward land.
His navigation cellphone became inoperable due to water damage.
For a week, ocean currents pulled his vessel southward, away from standard shipping routes.
"I was literally like a sitting duck, just getting taken south by the current going way off course," Sato told Hawaii News Now.
Survival at Sea
To survive, Sato built makeshift steering repairs using kayak paddles and PVC pipes.
When his freshwater supply ran out on July 11, he collected drinking water by trapping condensation under plastic bags stretched over buckets of seawater.
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He ate raw fish, squid that landed on his deck, and oatmeal.
Sato spent a month maneuvering his craft back into active commercial shipping lanes between California and Hawaii.
He maintained morale through meditation and by recalling a childhood voyage he shared with his uncle along the same route.
A Pasha Hawaii commercial vessel spotted the drifting boat and brought Sato aboard. The crew provided him with fresh clothes, food, and private accommodations.
"Oh my God, yeah, like ecstatic...
I was crying and so happy, and then they got me fruit and water, and yeah, they were so good to me, those guys," Sato said.
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After the rescue, Sato relocated to stay with a family member. Despite the near-fatal voyage, he is already making plans for an upcoming sailing expedition to the Philippines.
