Three fishermen stranded on a remote Pacific atoll for more than a week were rescued after spelling out the word “Help” in the sand using giant palm fronds.
A crew from the US Coast Guard cutter Oliver Henry plucked the men, in their 40s, from Pikelot atoll, part of the Federated States of Micronesia, to safety on Tuesday after their message was spotted from the air.
In an extraordinary twist, one of the members of the Coast Guard rescue team that went ashore to save them turned out to be their relative, a third cousin with the same last name, and able to speak their local language.
The trio had been missing since failing to return from an Easter Sunday fishing expedition aboard their 20ft skiff, and survived by eating coconuts, they told their rescuers.
Coast Guard officials said without their message from palm leaves, the men might not have been found.
“In a remarkable testament to their will to be found, the mariners spelled out ‘HELP’ on the beach using palm leaves, a crucial factor in their discovery,” Lt Chelsea Garcia said in a statement.
“This act of ingenuity was pivotal in guiding rescue efforts directly to their location.”
A search was already under way after relatives alerted authorities that the men had set out from Polowat atoll, about 115 miles from where they were rescued, but had not returned. Their vessel, a traditional skiff, had only a single outboard motor.
The Coast Guard’s joint rescue sub-center in Guam launched an aerial search over an area of more 78,000 square nautical miles, but was hampered by poor weather. The help message was eventually spotted on Sunday by a US Navy P-8A reconnaissance jet based in Okinawa, Japan, and the crew of a Coast Guard HC-130J Hercules aircraft dropped a radio pack and food on to the island.
The men reported they were in good health and had been eating coconuts and drinking from a freshwater well on the atoll, which is an occasional stop-off for Micronesian fishermen. The marine rescue was enacted on Tuesday, with Coast Guard PO2 Eugene Halishlius one of the first to go ashore.
“I could see on their faces, ‘Whoa! Who’s this guy pulling up that can speak our language?’” Halishlius told CNN in an interview on Thursday, adding they were further surprised when he told them his name. “It’s a crazy world, I actually found out I’m related to them. [They] couldn’t believe I’m with the Coast Guard trying to rescue them.”
The men told him that their skiff had been swamped by rough seas and the outboard motor became waterlogged, so they paddled to the atoll.
Pikelot is a tiny and remote coral island of only 31 acres, more than 400 miles south-east of Guam. According to Stars and Stripes, it saw an almost identical rescue four years ago when three sailors who ran out of fuel and drifted on to the atoll spelled out “SOS” in palm fronds.
Their message was spotted from a US air force refueling aircraft and they were retrieved several days later by a Micronesian patrol boat.
