Two men rescued after floating in Pacific Ocean for FIVE MONTHS...

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

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.

 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.

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.

 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.

 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.’

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.