Inspired by Life of Pi, a Czech visitor who had overstayed his tourist visa and did not have money for an airplane ticket tried to leave Taiwan on a crudely built raft to travel to Japan.
Martin Psota launched his raft on Sunday from Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Pingtung County, but did not travel far. Unfortunately for Psota, it was a much tougher task than he envisioned. He was soon overcome by exhaustion from rowing and the jerry-rigged raft made of logs and Styrofoam began to break apart.
It was his good luck that a Coast Guard Administration patrol boat picked him up off Oluanpi, ending his brief adventure.
Photo: Tsai Tsung-hsien, courtesy of the Coast Guard Administration
The coast guard unit received a telephone call at about 11am on Sunday from a fishing boat, whose captain told them: “We are 5.5km offshore of Oluanpi. There is a foreigner floating at sea in a decrepit-looking raft.”
When the patrol boat headed there to take a closer look, the coast guard personnel were astounded by what they saw.
“How can anyone be so crazy? This man went out to sea in a small raft, consisting only of logs, driftwood and Styrofoam tied together. When we found him, the raft was already falling apart,” a coast guard officer said.
They were even more astonished when Psota told his story — that while traveling in Taiwan, he saw Life of Pi, which gave him the inspiration to build a raft from materials he found on the beach.
Psota was quoted as saying that he came to Taiwan in November, but had overstayed his tourist visa and had spent all his money, so he could not buy a ticket to leave the country. He thought sailing a raft would be a good way to get to Japan, his next destination.
Coast guard reports said that when Psota was found, he only had a few items in his backpack, including NT$3, a passport, some food and water, and a smartphone, with which he wanted to navigate to Japan by GPS.
Psota said he launched the raft near Oluanpi, but “after rowing for about an hour, I was exhausted and had no more strength left. The current got stronger and I could not do anything but drift along with it.”
The coast guard unit, from a base in Hengchun (恆春), Pingtung County, said Psota was transferred to the county’s National Immigration Agency for questioning.
An official there said that according to procedure, Psota is to be deported after undergoing medical check-ups and spending time at the agency’s detention center.
Beijing could eventually see a full amphibious invasion of Taiwan as the only "prudent" way to bring about unification, the US Department of Defense said in a newly released annual report to Congress. The Pentagon's "Annual Report to Congress: Military and Security Developments Involving the People's Republic of China 2025," was in many ways similar to last year’s report but reorganized the analysis of the options China has to take over Taiwan. Generally, according to the report, Chinese leaders view the People's Liberation Army's (PLA) capabilities for a Taiwan campaign as improving, but they remain uncertain about its readiness to successfully seize
Taiwan is getting a day off on Christmas for the first time in 25 years. The change comes after opposition parties passed a law earlier this year to add or restore five public holidays, including Constitution Day, which falls on today, Dec. 25. The day marks the 1947 adoption of the constitution of the Republic of China, as the government in Taipei is formally known. Back then the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) governed China from Nanjing. When the KMT, now an opposition party in Taiwan, passed the legislation on holidays, it said that they would help “commemorate the history of national development.” That
Taiwan has overtaken South Korea this year in per capita income for the first time in 23 years, IMF data showed. Per capita income is a nation’s GDP divided by the total population, used to compare average wealth levels across countries. Taiwan also beat Japan this year on per capita income, after surpassing it for the first time last year, US magazine Newsweek reported yesterday. Across Asia, Taiwan ranked fourth for per capita income at US$37,827 this year due to sustained economic growth, the report said. In the top three spots were Singapore, Macau and Hong Kong, it said. South
Snow fell on Yushan (Jade Mountain, 玉山) yesterday morning as a continental cold air mass sent temperatures below freezing on Taiwan’s tallest peak, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. Snowflakes were seen on Yushan’s north peak from 6:28am to 6:38am, but they did not fully cover the ground and no accumulation was recorded, the CWA said. As of 7:42am, the lowest temperature recorded across Taiwan was minus-5.5°C at Yushan’s Fengkou observatory and minus-4.7°C at the Yushan observatory, CWA data showed. On Hehuanshan (合歡山) in Nantou County, a low of 1.3°C was recorded at 6:39pm, when ice pellets fell at Songsyue Lodge (松雪樓), a
RSS