Stranded Aussies confronted on pirate island off Western Australia coast

Two Australian YouTubers have spoken of their nightmare sea journey after they were marooned on a tiny island halfway to Indonesia.

Jack Strickland and Francesca Pusceddu, who run the Back 2 Basics Adventures YouTube channel, sailed from Western Australia searching for “pristine waters and a sense of peace that comes with being away from society”.

But they ran into trouble when their boat was damaged, leaving them on a tiny sand island in the middle of nowhere.

“Smashed boat and a long way from home,” Mr Strickland wrote on Facebook this week.

“We hitchhiked a ride and towed (our boat) the Salty Dingo half way to Indonesia in search of a tiny sand cay in the middle of the ocean. The idea was that this would be our base camp for a couple of weeks until we could hitchhike a ride home.

“But we might’ve bitten off more than we could chew with this adventure.”

After carefully keeping the boat afloat with a cracked hull, the pair found themselves stranded on a small sand island and had no choice but to set up camp for the night.

The pair said they were then approached by people they described as “quite suspicious”, after hearing reports of piracy in the region. A 2013 article from Forbes reported the region near Indonesia had overtaken waters off the coast of Somalia to “claim the dubious honour of the most pirate attacks in the world”.

“Three figures have pulled in on the beach down the other side of the sand cay and are slowly walking this way,” Mr Strickland said in the video, mentioning that he armed himself with a knife.

“They’re constantly stopping and the way they’re acting is quite suspicious. We’re just going to see how this plays out. We’re feeling incredibly vulnerable at this moment.

“I was always taught never to bring a knife to a fight unless you were prepared to use it and always be prepared to defend yourself if needed.”

“Hello mister. You‘re from Indonesia?” he then asks one of the men.

The men did not speak English, but when they replied ‘trepang’, the local word for sea cucumber, leaving Mr Strickland to assume they were fishermen and not pirates.

“We’ve managed to calm ourselves down but the adrenaline was pumping there for a bit,” he said back at the campsite after leaving the men.

“We had no idea who they were or where they were from and piracy in this area is a potential risk, so we had to be cautious.

“But I’ve put the machete away as thankfully the visitors were Indonesian fishermen... but it was touch and go there for a while.

“Hopefully things go smoother for the rest of the trip.”

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