Two emaciated fishermen were recovering in a Pacific hospital today after enduring a five month ordeal drifting helplessly in an open boat.

The Papua New Guinea fishermen told officials in the town of Pohnpei in the Caroline Islands that they had survived by eating raw fish and drinking rainwater.

Their ordeal finally ended when they were picked up by a fishing boat called Yap Seagull, about 120 miles south of remote Kapingamarangi Island.

Badly sunburned and suffering from hunger, they were described by hospital officials as being in 'reasonable' condition considering the many weeks they had spent drifting across the ocean.

Michael Bolong (left) and Ambros Wavut (right) finally make it to dry land after their ordeal

Officials named the rescued men as Michael Bolong, 54, and Ambros Wavut, 28.

A third man who had been on the tiny open boat had died, said the men. They claim that the man, Francis Dimansol, 48, died from 'severe health conditions' while they were adrift in the Pacific.

Mr Dimanbol died just two weeks before his companions were found by the Yap fishing boat.

No details have emerged about what happened to his body, but it is known that in similar dramas on the high seas survivors have lowered those who have succumbed to the elements over the side of the boat as their bodies started to decompose.

It was also emerged that Mr Bolong is the uncle of Mr Wavut - and their survival story was made even more remarkable because they were not fishermen but construction workers who were sailing from one small island to another.

But somehow they managed to catch fish and eat them raw, while scooping up rainwater that had gathered in the bottom of their boat.

‘We were convinced that everyone had given up looking for us,’ Mr Bolong told the crew of the Yap Seagull fishing boat which picked them up.

‘We know from other instances of boats being lost that after a while searchers give up, convinced that no-one can survive after many weeks in an open boat,’ he said in broken English.

‘We managed to sit out storms without being overturned, but that might also have led to people thinking we had no chance of surviving.

‘There is no doubt that after weeks, which turned into months, we were forgotten, except by our families.’

Mr Bill Janes, editor of the Kaselehlie Press in Pohnpei said that when he saw the men step ashore from the Yap Seagull he noticed how thin they were, but thought that they were otherwise in 'great shape'.

What might have helped their recovery, he noted, was the fact that they had been on the Yap fishing boat for four days after being picked up and brought into port.

While the rescued men have still to tell their story in detail, it is believed they drifted helplessly for at least 1000 miles after setting out on a fishing trip in early July from their village in the province of New Ireland, which comes under Papua New Guinea administration.

The amazing journey of 1,000 miles that the two men from Papua New Guinea survived

All was going well until the engine on their boat broke down and they became victims of the ocean currents.

'They saw passing ships but could not get the message across that they were in trouble,' said an official on Pohnpei.

According to a report from the Federated States of Micronesia government information service on the island of Yap, the men's boat had been carried out to sea by a strong current.

The report said they had managed to survive a number of severe storms.

Michael Bolong (left) and Ambros Wavut (right) were in surprisingly good condition when they were rescued

Radio New Zealand reported that the men were admitted to hospital for observation, although authorities claim the men are in good health, and that work is now underway to repatriate the men.