50 Days Adrift and Amazingly Rescued at Sea

How long before they make a movie of this?  Three teenage boys from the Tokelau Islands, a New Zealand-administered territory in the South Pacific, had been given up for dead after an unsuccessful search. But, a tuna fishing boat picked them up near Fiji and is taking them to hospital for treatment for severe sunburn, 50 days after they were lost.

The boys survived on coconuts, water they trapped on a tarpaulin and a seabird they managed to catch.

Samu Perez and Filo Filo, both 15, and Edward Nasau, 14 - had gone missing from Atafu atoll in a small aluminium boat after an annual sporting event on 5 October.

They were presumed to have died after unsuccessful searches by the New Zealand air force.

The boys were then spotted north-east of Fiji on Wednesday afternoon by a member of the tuna boat's crew.

"We drew up next to them, and we asked if they needed any help and their reply was a very ecstatic 'yes'," the tuna vessel's first mate, Tai Fredricsen, told the BBC.

"We immediately deployed our rescue craft and got them straight on board and administered basic first aid."

The boys had a small supply of coconuts on their boat, but that it had run out after two days.  They also said that two weeks prior to the rescue, they were able to catch a sea bird which was very lucky for them.