Elvis François, a 47-year-old Dominican, was lost at sea for 24 days and survived thanks to an unusual object.
The story is extraordinary and ends very well. As our colleagues from Le Parisien tell us, it was in December 2022 that Elvis François, a resident of Dominica, got lost in the open sea Caribbean. The man was repairing a sailboat in the West Indies when he suddenly found himself”carried out to sea“due to high winds and difficult weather. From there, Elvis Francois drifted for 24 days before he was finally spotted, as detailed in a statement from the navy which has recounted his misadventure. “On January 15, I saw a plane pass by. I had a mirror and started sending signals. When I saw him pass twice, I understood that they had seen me”.
It was the Colombian navy which, after 24 days alone at sea, came to his aid when he was 220 km northwest of Puerto Bolivar. And if Elvis François managed to survive all this time on the sailboat – on the hull of which he wrote “help“, Where “Help” – it is thanks to two very special ingredients: ketchup and bouillon cubes. In a video shot and published by the Colombian navy which saved him, the survivor explains: “I had nothing to eat, just a bottle of ketchup, garlic powder and Maggi. I mixed everything with water to survive for about 24 days”. A feat that made him a hero, all the more so after having managed to feed and survive with almost nothing on board.
No sailing experience
The story thus ends fortunately well for Elvis François, who is clearly not not a sailor at heart as stated in the press release. “Without any knowledge of navigation, he was lost and disoriented at sea, his efforts to maneuver the ship and the equipment on board were for naught. Suffice to say that the survivor nevertheless had to find something to occupy himself during all this time and so as not to lose the spirit nor the hope. “I couldn’t do anything but sit and wait 24 days away from the earth, with no one to talk to, no idea what to do or where I was. It was hard, at times I lost hope, I was thinking of my family“. A family that he was able to find as soon as he returned to Dominica.