A Californian man spent more than a month stranded aboard his sailboat while attempting to reach Hawaii. The 39-year-old, Kai Sato, set sail from Catalina Island, off the California coast, on June 7, attempting his first solo crossing of the Pacific.

His plans took a turn for the worse when the mast of his sailboat snapped just two weeks into the voyage. “I cried for a whole week, just drifting south, I was a wreck,” Sato told the Hawaii-based news outlet Hawaii News Now.

When Sato tried to motor back to shore, he ran out of petrol, leaving him stranded in the middle of the Pacific.

After five days adrift with no control over the boat, Sato sprang into action. He began making improvised repairs to the sails, using PVC pipes and kayak paddles. He said it took a month to work his way back to the shipping route between California and Hawaii.

Even then, he still had a long way to go before reaching land. On July 11 he ran out of water. To stay hydrated, he filled buckets with seawater and sealed them with plastic bags to collect the condensation that formed inside. “I licked the drops to survive,” Sato said, adding that he mainly ate oats, along with fish and squid that landed on his boat.

Sato recalled asking for guidance, meditating, and talking to the water and the wind. He also felt the presence of his uncle, with whom he had made a previous trip from California to Hawaii as a young boy.

At one point, a ship belonging to the shipping company Pasha Hawaii, which operates vessels between the US mainland and Hawaii, appeared on the horizon.

After two attempts, the crew managed to throw a rope ladder down to Sato, and he climbed aboard. They gave him a room, clothes and plenty of food. “I was crying, I was so happy. They brought me fruit and water. Those people were so kind to me,” Sato said. He is now staying with a relative and is already planning his next trip, to the Philippines, this time in a larger boat.