SURIGAO DEL NORTE -- Philippine Coast Guard personnel rescued on Wednesday, Jan. 25, an American national aboard a private yacht which developed engine trouble off Daku Island waters in General Luna, Surigao del Norte.
Coast guard authorities had earlier received a distress call from United States Coast Guard based in Guam, USA that a seacraft identified as ‘Mi Amor’ with its skipper aboard identified as Dan Michaels broke its propeller while navigating from Palau to the Philippines at the high seas, about 140 nautical miles off Daku Island last January 22.
Admiral Artemio Abu, PCG commandant, immediately ordered the deployment of BRP Panglao and BRP Cabra to locate and assist the distressed yacht skippered by Michaels.
Coast Guard personnel, together with rescuers from the Armed Forces of the Philippines-Eastern Mindanao and Command and the Philippine National Police located the distressed seacraft off the waters of Santa Monica, Surigao del Norte while its broken propeller was being repaired by Michaels.
Abu stressed that the rescue operation was pursuant to the provisions of Aeronautical and Maritime Search and Rescue Agreement signed in 2021 by the Philippines and United States which provides mutual assistance for distress calls within the territorial waters from either of the two signatories-countries.