El Fausto: The Boat That Disappeared Three Times and the Torn Notebook

Before dawn on 21 July 1968, El Fausto left El Hierro to return to Tazacorte on La Palma. The route was roughly one hundred kilometres, and three men aboard had travelled it many times. The crew were brothers Ramón and Heriberto Concepción and their cousin Miguel Acosta. The fourth man was Julio García Pino, a 27-year-old mechanic who had taken a last-minute passage to reach his newborn daughter, who was ill.

El Fausto should have arrived after about seven hours. It did not. Aircraft and rescue boats searched for days without finding wreckage, a radio signal, or an oil slick. On 25 July, the British merchant ship Duquesa unexpectedly found El Fausto more than one hundred kilometres west of La Palma. All four men were alive. They accepted water, food, and fuel but refused a tow to shore. Duquesa departed after giving them a heading and an expected arrival time.