RIO HATO, Panama (AP) -- Three Panamanian men were on their way home after a night of fishing, happy with their success, when the motor on their small open boat rattled and quit, leaving them adrift in sight of land, but too far out for their cell phones to work.
With nothing left to eat but the fish they caught and a few gallons of water, they drifted for 16 days, more than 100 miles from home, before they thought they must be saved.
Adrian Vasquez, 18, saw a huge white ship coming toward them. He waved a red sweater to get their attention, reaching high over his head, and dropping it low to his knees. Though he was near death, the skipper of the little panga, Elvis Oropeza Betancourt, 31, joined in, waving an orange life jacket.
"Tio, look what's coming over there," Vasquez recalled saying in an interview Thursday with The Associated Press. "We felt happy, because we thought they were coming to rescue us."
The ship didn't stop, and the fishing boat drifted another two weeks before it was found. By then, Vasquez's two friends had died.
