Man survives on ketchup for 24 days stranded on a sailboat

A man who says he survived 24 days adrift in the Caribbean on a sailboat by eating ketchup, garlic powder and seasoning cubes was rescued by the Colombian navy from Dominica.
The word “help” scrawled in English on the boat’s hull by Elvis Francois, 47, was key to his rescue, officials said.

The Colombian navy said in a statement Wednesday that the sailboat in which Francois was adrift was spotted from the air 120 nautical miles northwest of La Guajira peninsula and then escorted to the port city of Cartagena with the help of a passing container ship.
Francois told Colombian authorities that his ordeal began in December when currents swept the sailboat out to sea while he was making repairs off the island of St. Martin in the Netherlands Antilles, where he was living at the time.
”I called my friends, but I lost the signal before they could contact me. “All we could do was sit and wait,” Francois said in a video released by the navy.
He said that he subsisted on a bottle of ketchup, garlic powder, and Maggi cubes.
“Constantly having to remove water from the boat to prevent it from sinking is frustrating,” said Francois. He also tried to light a fire to send a distress signal, but he was not successful.
He signaled with a mirror after a plane passed by. The navy told him that he was spotted when the plane passed again, he said.
”I want to thank the coast guard for bringing me back to my family. I was lost and without hope, but they never gave up on me. “I wouldn’t be telling the story,” Francois said, “if it weren’t for them.”
Francois was in good health when he was rescued, the navy said. He was returned home to Dominica by immigration authorities after receiving a medical check on shore.