Stranded Ghanaian fishermen narrate how they ate fresh fish, drunk sea water to survive two weeks at sea

A 29-year-old Ghanaian fisherman, Kwamena Nkum, has recounted how he and six colleagues survived nearly two weeks at sea after their canoe’s outboard motor broke down, leaving them without food and safe drinking water.

The fishermen, all from Sekondi, set off for a fishing expedition to Axim in the Western Region on October 9, 2026, aboard a canoe named Second Chance. Their five-day trip turned into a life-threatening ordeal when the engine failed on the third day and repeated attempts to repair it proved unsuccessful.

Nkum said their food and water supplies lasted only five days after the breakdown, forcing them to depend on fish they caught and, eventually, burn wood from their canoe to prepare meals after their charcoal ran out.

“We usually spend five days at sea but this time, our motor became faulty on the third day. It just went off, we tried to fix it but it didn’t work. Our food and water got finished. We were drinking sea water. We boiled the water to reduce the salt concentration,” Nkum recounted.

He explained that the fishermen initially ate fish they had harvested during the expedition, but some of their catch spoiled and had to be thrown away. They subsequently used hooks and lines to catch fresh fish for food.

“We were also eating the fish we had harvested but at a point they went bad and so we had to dispose them. We used some of them with our hook and line to catch fresh fish to eat,” he said.

Although the group had fuel and matches, the shortage of charcoal forced them to find another way to cook. Nkum said they resorted to burning wood taken from the canoe as their ordeal at sea continued.

Their situation began to change after they spotted land one night. According to Nkum, one of the fishermen who was still awake alerted the others, prompting them to switch on their mobile phones and establish contact with people on shore.

“We switched on our phones and received a call later from home from a friend called Kingsley. We then got in contact with our fishing leaders as we tried to tell them our location. We thought we were in Togo but we were rather in Benin. We had no food left. We were very hungry,” he said.

Nkum said Kingsley and the fishermen’s leaders contacted the chief fisherman in Benin, who came to their aid with food and water. Local fishermen, as well as the Beninese and Togolese navies, later assisted in the rescue effort.

The seven fishermen were handed over to the Ghana Navy by a Togolese naval vessel at the Ghana-Togo maritime border on October 21. They subsequently arrived safely at the Fishing Harbour in Tema following a joint search-and-rescue operation.

The rescued fishermen were identified as Kofi Emmanuel, 32; Uncle Amoah, 45; Kwamena Nkum, 29; Kofi Aboagye, 36; Doboa, 35; Agya Badu, 42; and Kwamena Akyem, 40.

Reflecting on their experience, Nkum said the group should have carried a second outboard motor as a backup to avoid being stranded if their main engine failed.