A Sailor And His Cat Have Been Found After Seven Months At Sea In A Broken Boat

Reket was traveling to South Africa by boat. He ended up running into some trouble. His little black and white cat named Samira was his only company. After his one month supply of soup rations ran out, the pair survived on the fish that Reket caught out of the ocean.

Reket had been living in the United State but was not able to return after a trip to India because his green card expired. He purchased his boat in India. It was originally a lifeboat from a cruise ship that he modified.

His plan was to sail to Jakarta, Indonesia, but his mast broke. He made it to the Comoros Islands where he found his cat, Samira, and spent the next two years fixing his boat and trying to contact officials, in his homeland of Poland, through the embassy in Kenya.

The Polish embassy gave him a bit of money to help him out but refused to repatriate him. Because of this, he decided to sail to Durban, South Africa. That is when he ran into some boat trouble.

His boat broke down and the large waves destroyed his radio and other equipment. This resulted in him and his cat being set adrift for a long seven months. If he had been successful in his trip, he would have managed to sail 1200 miles through the Mozambique Channel which is a busy shipping route.

He was just not able to get his boat on that path after it broke down. "Several times I could see land but I could never steer towards it. I spotted several ships but the battery on my radio was dead," he said.

When the French coastguard finally found him, he was malnourished but in good health. Reket is now in Reunion, a French island, and is an EU citizen and is considering staying put for awhile.

Officials are investigating Reket's claims and are trying to figure out the exact route that he took that landed him in their path. It is hard for them to figure out since the instruments on Reket's boat were all smashed and damaged.

Officials were able to confirm the rest of his story. They found his Polish passport, his permit to stay in the Comoros Islands, and his US green card. Because of this, they believe that his story is true. Right now, a local charity is helping Reket and his furry first mate while they get on their feet.