A man stranded alone on a boat in the middle of the Caribbean Sea survived for 24 days on nothing but ketchup and some noodles.
A person who spent 24 days adrift alone in the middle of the ocean
Elvis Francois, a 47-year-old man from Dominica, was stranded alone on his sailboat about 120 miles northwest of Puerto Bolivar, Colombia.
Francois was found stranded on his boat after a plane spotted the word “help” emblazoned on the hull, the Colombian navy said in a statement released Tuesday.
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In a video released by the Colombian military, Francois said, “I had no food. I only had a bottle of ketchup, garlic powder and Maggi (stock cubes) from the boat. So I mixed them with a little water.”
The rescued Francois was transferred to Cartagena, where he received medical treatment and was later handed over to immigration authorities to return home, Colombian officials said.
Francois is from the island nation of Dominica, where he was repairing his boat near the Dutch side of the island of St. Martin in December when bad weather dragged his boat out to sea.
Twitter @UltimaHoraCR
“Twenty-four days – no land, no one to talk to. I didn’t know what to do, I didn’t know where I was. It was difficult. At a certain point, I lost all hope. I was thinking about my family,” he said.
He said that he did not have the knowledge to steer a boat towards the shore and was unable to bring his boat back to shore during the days he was lost at sea.