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3 Men Rescued from Pacific Island After Writing ‘Help’ With Palm Leaves

3 Men Rescued from Pacific Island After Writing ‘Help’ With Palm Leaves
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3 Men Rescued from Pacific Island After Writing ‘Help’ With Palm Leaves

3 Men Rescued from Pacific Island After Writing ‘Help’ With Palm Leaves

A trio of sailors who spent more than a week stranded on a remote, uninhabited atoll in the Pacific were rescued by the US Coast Guard after a search and rescue team spotted a giant sign spelling ‘HELP’ the men had constructed from palm fronds on the beach.

The sailors, identified as three men in their 40s with sailing experience, set out from Polowat Atoll, southeast of Guam, on 31 March.

Their boat, a 20-foot open skiff with an outboard motor, sustained damage and the men were stranded on Pikelot Atoll, The Independent reported.

Nearly a week later, on 6 April, the US Joint Rescue Sub-Center in Guam got a distress call from a relative of the sailors, saying they hadn’t returned from Pikelot.

The call prompted US officials to begin a rescue operation spanning an area of over 78,000 nautical miles.

The following day, a US Navy P-8 Poseidon aircraft operating out of Kadena Air Force Base in Japan spotted the mariners, along with a crude shelter they’d erected on the beach and dropped them survival packages.

On 8 April, a US Coast Guard HC-130J Hercules aircraft flew over the stranded men, dropping a radio to the missing sailors.

The men radioed back that they were “in good health” and “had access to food and water,” according to the Coast Guard. They had been surviving by eating coconuts.

The next day, a Coast Guard ship, the USCGC Oliver Henry, which had been diverted from its original course to join the rescue, picked up the sailors.

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A Set of 1st Editions of Shakespeare's Plays Could Fetch $6 million at Auction

This photo issued by Sotheby's on Wednesday April 23, 2025, shows The First Folio of William Shakespeare, which contains 36 of Shakespeare's plays, and is "the most significant publication in the history of English literature". It is one of four folios which are due to go on sale at Sotheby's in London on May 23, where they are expected to fetch between £3.5 million and £4.5 million. (Sotheby's via AP)
This photo issued by Sotheby's on Wednesday April 23, 2025, shows The First Folio of William Shakespeare, which contains 36 of Shakespeare's plays, and is "the most significant publication in the history of English literature". It is one of four folios which are due to go on sale at Sotheby's in London on May 23, where they are expected to fetch between £3.5 million and £4.5 million. (Sotheby's via AP)
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A Set of 1st Editions of Shakespeare's Plays Could Fetch $6 million at Auction

This photo issued by Sotheby's on Wednesday April 23, 2025, shows The First Folio of William Shakespeare, which contains 36 of Shakespeare's plays, and is "the most significant publication in the history of English literature". It is one of four folios which are due to go on sale at Sotheby's in London on May 23, where they are expected to fetch between £3.5 million and £4.5 million. (Sotheby's via AP)
This photo issued by Sotheby's on Wednesday April 23, 2025, shows The First Folio of William Shakespeare, which contains 36 of Shakespeare's plays, and is "the most significant publication in the history of English literature". It is one of four folios which are due to go on sale at Sotheby's in London on May 23, where they are expected to fetch between £3.5 million and £4.5 million. (Sotheby's via AP)

A set of the first four editions of William Shakespeare’s collected works is expected to sell for up to 4.5 million pounds ($6 million) at auction next month.

Sotheby’s auction house announced the sale on Wednesday, Shakespeare's 461st birthday. It said the May 23 sale will be the first time since 1989 that a set of the First, Second, Third and Fourth Folios has been offered at auction as a single lot.

The auction house estimated the sale price at between 3.5 million and 4.5 million pounds.

After Shakespeare’s death in 1616, his plays were collected into a single volume by his friends John Heminges and Henry Condell, actors and shareholders in the playwright’s troupe, the King’s Men, The AP news reported.

The First Folio — fully titled “Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories & Tragedies” — contained 36 plays, of which half were published there for the first time. Without the book, scholars say, plays including “Macbeth,” “The Tempest” and “Twelfth Night” might have been lost. Sotheby’s called the volume “without question the most significant publication in the history of English literature.”

About 750 copies were printed in 1623, of which about 230 are known to survive. All but a few are in museums, universities or libraries. One of the few First Folios in private hands sold for $9.9 million at an auction in 2020.

The First Folio proved successful enough that a an updated edition, the Second Folio, was published in 1632, a third in 1663 and a fourth in 1685.

Although the First Folio is regarded as the most valuable, the third is the rarest, with 182 copies known to survive. It is believed the third book’s rarity is because some of the stock was destroyed in the Great Fire of London in 1666.

The Third Folio included seven additional plays, but only one – “Pericles, Prince of Tyre” – is believed to be by Shakespeare.