‘VERY DIFFICULT ORDEAL’

Australian Castaway and His Dog Rescued by Tuna Boat After Months at Sea

The 51-year-old sailor was roughly 1,200 miles from land when he was spotted by a Mexican tuna boat.

An Australian man cast adrift in the Pacific Ocean was scooped up by a Mexican tuna trawler over the weekend, bringing to an end three months at sea with only his dog for company, officials and rescuers told local media. The 51-year-old sailor, Timothy Shaddock, and his dog, Bella, had set sail from Mexico for French Polynesia when a storm incapacitated his catamaran. They survived by eating raw fish and drinking rainwater, he told Australian channel 9News. “I have been through a very difficult ordeal at sea,” Shaddock said, adding that he’d “not had food, enough food, for a long time.” He and Bella were in a “precarious” state when they were found roughly 1,200 miles from land, according to the Associated Press. A doctor who treated Shaddock aboard the tuna boat told 9News that he was “stable and very well. The trawler-turned-rescue-vessel is expected to make port in the Mexican city of Manzanillo on Tuesday.