THE mummified corpse of a sailor was found perfectly preserved on an abandoned yacht after vanishing for more than a year.
A group of fishermen made the grim discovery in the Philippine Sea.
On February 26, 2016, Christopher Rivas and his fellow fishermen from Mindanao stumbled upon a drifting boat as they were wrapping up their day’s work.
The battered vessel with a broken mast was partially submerged in the sea 60 miles off the coast of Barobo town in the Surigao del Sur province.
Upon boarding the vessel, 23-year-old Rivas made a chilling discovery inside the 40ft yacht – the mummified body of Manfred Fritz Bajorat, a German sailor.
The 59-year-old had been missing for over a year but his remains had been perfectly preserved from the moment of his death.
Rivas found Bajorat’s leathery corpse slumped over a table next to his vessel’s radio transmitters.
His head was resting on his right arm while his other arm was lying in his lap.
Bajorat’s legs could be seen sticking out from the side of the table.
And the body was perfectly mummified thanks to the dry but salty conditions of the cabin he died in.
According to Peter Vanezis, a professor of forensic pathology at Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry, the combination of air, heat, and salt in the sea played a significant role in the mummification process.
He told ATI: “It starts within two to three weeks. The fingers and other extremities… dry quickly, and in a month or two they are well gone.”
Complete mummification takes place after a number of weeks.
It is thought that the light grey patches that can be seen on various parts of his body – including his right hand – are bits of mould.
The sailor was identified by authorities thanks to the documents that were in his vessel which included family photographs of him, his ex-wife Claudia and his daughter.
One image showed Bajorat holding a baby with the caption: “Our first time with our little Button on the sea.”
Among the sentimental possessions was a chilling letter containing a final message from the solo sailor to the love of his life.
The note read: “Thirty years we’ve been together on the same path.
“Then the power of the demons was stronger than the will to live.
“You’re gone. May your soul find its peace. Your Manfred.”
Investigators from the German embassy discovered that Claudia had died from cancer in 2010 – two years after she and Bajorat divorced.
Before their split, the couple had been sailing the seas together for two decades and their daughter Nina worked as the captain of a freight vessel.
Nina told investigators that after the divorce, her father sailed the seas alone, racking up more than half a million nautical miles including sailing from Singapore to South Africa.
An autopsy of his mummified body revealed that Bajorat had died of a heart attack and he had only been dead for about a week before he was found.
National police spokesman Chief Superintendent Wilben Mayor said: “The cause of death is acute myocardial infarction based on the autopsy by regional crime laboratory.
“The German national is estimated to have been dead for more or less seven days.”
He is not thought to have contacted anyone since sending a birthday message to a friend on Facebook a year before he was found.
