The cruise ship Empress of the Seas, off its normal course to avoid inclement weather, rescued two Costa Rican fishermen in the Caribbean Sea between Grand Cayman and Jamaica. Their small boat had been blown off course and run out of gas - they had been adrift at sea for 20 days.

Per Travel Pulse , the ship first detected the boat by radar (per the news photos, the boat was metal).

Per KSAT the boat was showing a light that was spotted at 7PM.

The news story says the two still had enough fresh water for 7 more days (a total of 27 days worth), which seems remarkably good.

I'm reminded of the late Malcolm Murray's story about how he came to sell hundreds of signal mirrors below cost to Caribbean fishermen after participating in a futile aerial search for his friend's father:

"In the late '50's and early '60's, however fishermen stopped using sails, and began using outboard motors. Some took two motors, but many took only one. If the motor failed, the water was usually too deep to anchor. They would then drift to Panama in 17 days. By this time, all on board were usually dead. A lot of fishermen were lost this way ..."[1]

Malcolm was living in Aruba in the Caribbean Sea at the time of his story.

[1] Lopez, James L. The Lago Colony Legend , "ARUBA FISHERMEN AND SIGNAL REFLECTORS", Aruba Book 5 Final.pdf, pp. 491-492