These are four letters drawn in the sand using palm leaves which saved three sailors stranded on a desert island in the Pacific this week: “HELP”. This call for help traced on the white sand,
“this act of ingenuity, made it possible to guide the emergency services directly to their location
,” declared Chelsea Garcia, coordinator of the search and rescue mission, according to a press release from the US Coast Guard.
The three sailors had been stranded for more than a week on Pikelot, a tiny uninhabited island in the Caroline Islands, in the middle of the Pacific, 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.