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.
The Ministry of Education (MOE) is to launch a new program to encourage international students to stay in Taiwan and explore job opportunities here after graduation, Deputy Minister of Education Yeh Ping-cheng (葉丙成) said on Friday. The government would provide full scholarships for international students to further their studies for two years in Taiwan, so those who want to pursue a master’s degree can consider applying for the program, he said. The fields included are science, technology, engineering, mathematics, semiconductors and finance, Yeh added. The program, called “Intense 2+2,” would also assist international students who completed the two years of further studies in
The brilliant blue waters, thick foliage and bucolic atmosphere on this seemingly idyllic archipelago deep in the Pacific Ocean belie the key role it now plays in a titanic geopolitical struggle. Palau is again on the front line as China, and the US and its allies prepare their forces in an intensifying contest for control over the Asia-Pacific region. The democratic nation of just 17,000 people hosts US-controlled airstrips and soon-to-be-completed radar installations that the US military describes as “critical” to monitoring vast swathes of water and airspace. It is also a key piece of the second island chain, a string of
Taiwan will now have four additional national holidays after the Legislative Yuan passed an amendment today, which also made Labor Day a national holiday for all sectors. The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) used their majority in the Legislative Yuan to pass the amendment to the Act on Implementing Memorial Days and State Holidays (紀念日及節日實施辦法), which the parties jointly proposed, in its third and final reading today. The legislature passed the bill to amend the act, which is currently enforced administratively, raising it to the legal level. The new legislation recognizes Confucius’ birthday on Sept. 28, the
A magnitude 5.9 earthquake that struck about 33km off the coast of Hualien City was the "main shock" in a series of quakes in the area, with aftershocks expected over the next three days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Prior to the magnitude 5.9 quake shaking most of Taiwan at 6:53pm yesterday, six other earthquakes stronger than a magnitude of 4, starting with a magnitude 5.5 quake at 6:09pm, occurred in the area. CWA Seismological Center Director Wu Chien-fu (吳健富) confirmed that the quakes were all part of the same series and that the magnitude 5.5 temblor was
RSS