It was like the opening theme song montage from Gilligan’s Island, only there was no radio, no hammocks, and no one was laughing.
Two Americans, six Hondurans, and a Canadian set out on a pleasure cruise near Honduras on Saturday. They were headed for a nearby island when their boat ran out of gas. The trip was only supposed to be 18 miles, or about two hours. But it was 5 days later before they were found 66 miles from their intended destination. If not for the courage of the fearless crew, they may not have survived.
During the ordeal, the crew had no food and survived by drinking rainwater they caught in buckets during two storms. Tasha Brown, the 20-year-old Canadian on the trip, told ABC News about their survival.
“In the middle of the night we hit two storms, and it just poured and poured,” Brown said “We flipped over every bucket that we had, every container, every surface that could catch water. We prayed that we weren’t going to be flipped over by the storm and that we would have water for the next day.”
The group was located by a Coast Guard aircraft after a rescue operation that had covered 4,502 miles by air. An Army helicopter lifted the passengers and crew to safety, assisted by a Navy helicopter. Family members of the survivors say that the Honduran Navy and police were also very helpful in finding the survivors.
“They got real excited when they saw the flare go into the water, and the helicopter was on scene within 20 minutes,” U.S. Coast Guard Lt. Cmdr. Joe Boyes said.
The Americans will stay in a hospital in Roatan to recover for a couple of days, then fly home to the U.S. on Saturday.