Sea emergency: Sailor rescued from deserted Bahamas island after three days

The Bahamas lie off the coast of Florida and are therefore very popular with American sailors. The first group of islands is only 45 nautical miles away from Miami, i.e. a day trip. However, the entire island chain of the Bahamas stretches over 450 nautical miles in an east-west direction and offers several thousand small islands. Many of them are uninhabited. The purest adventure playground for sailors.

Last week, however, a 64-year-old American sailor strayed onto the very remote and uninhabited island of Cay Sal in the very south-west of the group. Outside the Gulf Stream and the popular destinations, the island lies in an area far from the usual routes. While anchored there, his boat was causing him problems for unspecified reasons, which prompted him to set up camp on land. With no working means of communication and no mobile phone reception, the sailor placed the word "SOS" in the sand with numerous stones and waited for help.

Stranded man is discovered by the Coastguard during a routine overflight

Stranded on this remote island, the sailor was nevertheless lucky in misfortune, as the Coastguard checks the island every few days to see if another Cuban refugee boat has landed on the island. As Cay Sal is only 30 nautical miles from the coast of Cuba, the island is a regular destination for boats. During a routine overflight of the island, the crew of a twin-engine Coastguard aircraft discovered the launch of a distress missile, flew round the island again and read the message on the beach.

The crew first dropped a parcel containing food, water and a radio over Cay Sal so that communication could be established with the shipwrecked man. He explained to the rescuers that his sailing boat was no longer seaworthy and that he had been waiting for help on the island for three days. Later pictures show the sunken boat. The US Coast Guard then sent its cutter "Paul Clark", which was stationed on Key West, to pick up the sailor on the island and soon afterwards handed him over to the Royal Bahamas Defence Force.

"We are glad that we were able to rescue the man," says Petty Officer Dev Craig, "This distress at sea is a good example of how important it is to carry an appropriate amount of rescue equipment on board. Without a distress rocket, we would probably have missed the sailor."

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