Two Burmese men floating in an industrial-size icebox off Australia’s northern coast have been rescued by the authorities, ending what the men said was a 25-day ordeal on storm-battered seas with only rainwater and a few raw fish regurgitated by sea birds for nourishment.

The men, both in their 20s, were picked up on Saturday when a routine patrol flight 90 miles from the mainland spotted something unusual in the water, said Tracey Jiggins, a spokeswoman for the Australian Maritime Safety Authority.

“They went back and had a look and realized it was two people,” Ms. Jiggins said.

The men were standing shoulder to shoulder in a large icebox, which was “about the size of a chest freezer,” Ms. Jiggins said. They waved colored clothes at the aircraft to attract attention.

A helicopter was sent to pick up the men. Once rescued, the two men gulped down about half a gallon of water each, the pilot, Terry Gadenne, told a local radio station.

“They were certainly thirsty,” Mr. Gadenne said. “They had some boils or damage of some sort to their legs, and that was given first aid, and we flew straight to hospital from there.”

The men told officials that they had been working on a 30-foot wooden fishing boat from Thailand that sank Dec. 23. The men said they last saw their 18 Thai and Burmese shipmates swimming with no life jackets. The location of the vessel was unclear, but Ms. Jiggins said she doubted that the other crew members could have survived.

Ms. Jiggins said Australian authorities did not pick up any distress signals at the end of December, nor had they received any reports about a missing boat. But it is not uncommon for unlicensed boats to venture into Indonesian and Australian waters.

The men, whom the authorities did not identify, were released Tuesday from a hospital on Thursday Island, which lies about 25 miles north of Cape York Peninsula, said the Queensland State Health Department. A spokesman, Jamie Collins, said the men were in good condition.

Some medical workers expressed skepticism that the men had been truthful about their ordeal, local media reported.

In an interview with The Sydney Morning Herald, one of the men, whom the newspaper identified as Ko Ko Oo, 22, said they had survived by drinking rainwater and eating small fish regurgitated by two birds that had landed on the icebox.

If the men’s story is true, they would have also survived a Category 1 storm that ripped across northern Australia the week before their rescue. The storm brought heavy rains that would have given the men drinking water, but it also would have pounded them with gusty winds.

“Those are two lucky people,” Ms. Jiggins said.