Pacific castaways' 'HELP' sign sparks rescue mission and family reunion | Hacker News Reader

Pacific castaways' 'HELP' sign sparks rescue mission and family reunion

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52 pointspaulpauper30 comments

https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/11/asia/pacific-castaways-pikelo...

Seems to be the original article.

>>The Navy jet dropped survival packs to the three men and relayed their location to the rescue center.

Ok, random question - looking at the pictures of a P-8A, I don't understand how it dropped anything while in flight, it's not like the pilot could chuck the packs out of their window. How does does that work? Are they equipped with a cargo door that can be opened in-flight?

The P-8 is a submarine hunter, and has a small weapons bay and drop chutes that can be used to drop torpedos and sonobuoys while in flight. I imagine they used the same capability to drop the survival packs.

There’s a pic of it here: https://www.twz.com/40859/the-case-for-stripping-the-p-8-pos...

(I have no opinion or endorsement of the other content in that site, just merely was looking for a picture)

That's very cool, thanks for answering!

Seems like it has a small bay for torpedoes and depth charges, a number of external hard points and a "free fall chute" for dropping things out of the plane [0]. I'm guessing the latter is what was used here. Here's a picture of it being used from inside the plane [1]

[0] http://www.b737.org.uk/mma.htm

[1] https://picryl.com/media/aircrewman-assigned-to-patrol-squad...

Dropping things is one of the primary purposes of the P-8A. They drop sonar buoys for submarine warfare.

> For a week, the men lived off coconut meat, but they did have fresh water from a small well on the island, which is sometimes visited by fishers in the region, Coast Guard officials said.

What do you do if you don’t have a fresh water source? Come up with some sort of evaporative desalination method using coconut shells?

>>Come up with some sort of evaporative desalination method using coconut shells?

Depends - if you have enough coconuts you just drink the coconut water until rescued. If there is anything else edible on the island you eat that, water from plants will help.

The second option is capturing rainwater, assuming you're in a place with rain.

Third is boiling water to get rid of the salt(you need to capture the steam on a piece of cloth, wring it into another container, but it's probably going to be the fastest option).

Of course this is assuming you have any materials from your ship, which I assume these guys did? You'd at least need a metal pot or a metal sheet that you can bend into the right shape.

But yeah in general without access to at least some kind of container where you can boil water(maybe a rock of a right size would work?) you'd be generally screwed.

I think the final desperate option is to just try and dig down and hope you hit water and that it's not salty.

Dig a hole near the sea, fill it with stones, light a fire on top, heating said stones, fill hole with water and catch the vapor?

>>light a fire on top

On top of what? Again that implies you have some kind of metal sheet or something.

In the hole you dug, so on top of whatever soil or sand you dug into and filled with stones/rocks. You fill the hole with water after the fire has died down and use the residual heat in the stones.

You can't make a soup this way, but you should be able to make some steam -- I think.

> if you have enough coconuts you just drink the coconut water until rescued

Coconut water has high levels of potassium, and in excess, has been noted in case reports to cause severe hyperkalemia. This link has more information:

> A 42-year-old black man without any medical history presented to our hospital after a syncopal episode. He was playing tennis outdoors all day in temperatures in excess of 90° Fahrenheit. He reported drinking a total of eight 11-ounce bottles of coconut water throughout the day. He experienced the sudden onset of lightheadedness and was witnessed to have lost consciousness

https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161/CIRCEP.113.000941

I've never tried planting trees in sea water, but what if you tapped the tree as if it was maple syrup... would the sap still contain salt? Although I'm guessing that doesn't work on every kind of tree.

If there's rain then there's water in the ground, and that water will travel toward the ocean and visibly (if you can read the signs) run out at low tide.

https://bushguide101.com/freshwater-seepages-on-sandy-beache...

A thirty one acre island that has rainfall and trees that capture moisture should have some groundwater flow that with luck can be found.

Unrelated to survival these are fantastic fun on beaches. We found one and started digging to make a pool, then a wiggly run to the beach to create a river. Blocking and changing it was great with the kids.

Then we found more, so we channeled things to join them together. Then more, and more. By the end we'd joined maybe 10 or more points together over 30+m wide, kids and adults from a bunch of families all with spades rapidly redigging various channels.

TBH I think I enjoyed it more than the kids. I even finally managed to make an oxbow lake - a result underappreciated by my four year old.

> What do you do if you don’t have a fresh water source? Come up with some sort of evaporative desalination method using coconut shells?

Coconuts are a fresh water source.

I once lived mostly on coconuts on a tropical island for a week - they get boring real fast.

Don’t coconuts also have a notable side effect if you eat enough of them over time?

Eating any one food for a long time is going to have negative consequences because unless that food is a meal replacement shake, you're going to need to get the vitals not in that food from somewhere.

The alternative, however is death by starvation, so I'd still pick the coconuts.

Check out [August Engelhardt](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/August_Engelhardt), a guy who promoted "cocovorism".

> He developed a philosophy that assumed that the sun was the venerable source of all life, and since the coconut was the fruit that grows nearest the sun, it must be the most perfect food for people. This view, called cocoivorism, culminated in Engelhardt's statement that the constant consumption of coconuts leads man to immortality.

I’m fascinated with this kind of stories and cults. Thanks for sharing. Did you read the book “Imperium” that is about the whole thing (according to Wikipedia)?

I did not, but I learned about him in a German history podcast (Geschichten aus der Geschichte, Episode 141)

Remarkably similar to a story from 2020, regarding 3 men stranded on the same island, rescued because they laid out a large "SOS" on the beach.

https://www.nationalguard.mil/News/Article/2300808/kc-135-cr...

At this point might it be sensible just to leave some sort of radio there? Or satellite phone? Maybe with some food...

Better yet, put a "hatch" there: an underground habitat where they can live. In one room, put a button that needs to be pressed every hour or else it explodes.

4 8 15 16 23 42

You lost me there

Perhaps a small house with Internet and an Xbox to spend time until rescue arrives.

Who’s going to refill the supply of verification cans though?

Coast Guard probably should check satellite images of this island once a week looking for fresh graffiti.

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