Three sailors, stranded for more than a week on an uninhabited island in the Pacific, were saved thanks to a message written with palm leaves in the sand. This “HELP” was able to be spotted by a plane flying over the area. Emergency services were then able to intervene and help them.
“HELP” are these four letters drawn in the sand using palm leaves which saved the lives of three sailors stranded on a desert island in the Pacific. An “act of ingenuity made it possible to guide the rescue services directly to their location,” explains Chelsea Garcia, coordinator of the search and rescue mission, according to a press release from the American Coast Guard.
Experienced sailors were able to be returned to their starting point
The three sailors had been stranded for more than a week on the tiny uninhabited island of Pikelot in the Caroline Islands, in the middle of the Pacific, territories attached to the Federated States of Micronesia. They had been spotted on Sunday by a plane flying over the area and “the crew was able to locate the sailors and dropped a radio to establish communication. The sailors confirmed that they were in good health, that they had access to food and water,” details the press release.
The three men “expressed the wish to obtain help to return to Polowat”, the paradise-looking islet from which they had left, more than 100 nautical miles (more than 185 kilometers), their boat being damaged and unusable. The experienced sailors, all in their forties, claimed to sail regularly in these Pacific waters and were able to be returned to their starting point.