Tupouniua Veamatahau is happy to be back on dry land in 'Eua with his wife and two children after his three-day ordeal at sea.

When he left Manuka, Tongatapu for ‘Eua on Saturday, April 22 he did not realize his solo boat trip would take a turn for the worse.

He told Matangi Tonga the problem started when he was only about 400 metres from reaching the wharf at ‘Eua. His boat engine stopped running. Unsure of what happened, he checked the engine and then the petrol tank.

“I opened the petrol tank and saw it was empty,” he said. “I had run out of petrol. I thought I had enough petrol to make the journey.”

Because he was close to the wharf, he thought he would be fine and telephoned his friend who has a boat in ‘Eua to bring him some petrol so he could reach the island.

“I told them where I was located. I was close, I could see the wharf clearly and the vehicles on it.”

He then called his wife and told her of the situation, then waited for his friends to arrive. It was starting to get dark when he called his friend again.

“They said they were just leaving the wharf to bring petrol to me.”

A little while later, he saw them coming out of the wharf opening in their boat.

“But they went in the wrong direction instead of heading towards me. They were going north west towards Tongatapu.”

To make it worse, his only form of communication was his mobile phone but the battery died. He also did not have any light on board nor did he have any safety equipment such as a radio or an emergency beacon.

When the boat started drifting with the current Tupounuia said it was too dark and he couldn’t see his friends anymore and decided to go to sleep.

On April 23, Sunday morning, he awoke to find he had drifted a long way out to sea.

“When I woke up on Sunday morning, I couldn’t see land. But then I could just make out ‘Eua.”

Not wanting to drift out further, he decided he had to do something. There was nothing wrong with the boat but he couldn’t risk the chance of loosing sight of ‘Eua.

At around 7am or 8am, he packed the things he needed and hoped into the life raft, which had oars.

“I jumped into the life raft because I thought that was my best chance to get to ‘Eua, by rowing.”

With no life jacket, Tupounuia said he also “packed the empty petrol canister as a backup in case the life raft got a hole” then at least he’d have something to hang on to in case he ended up in the water.

Without water and food he was determined to make it to ‘Eua and kept rowing keeping the island in his sight.

On April 25, Tuesday afternoon at around 3pm, he said he was pretty close to land when he spotted the Orion plane and waved his oars at them.

A few hours later he was picked up by the Tonga Police Search and Rescue boat and dropped off at ‘Eua at around 6pm that evening reuniting him with his wife and two children.

Unfortunately, Tupounuia has lost his father's 19ft boat, but he is extremely happy to be alive.