That Gilligan’s Island story about three guys getting capsized by a wave, swimming to an uninhabited Micronesia island, being stranded for three days and then getting rescued after starting a fire and spelling HELP on the beach with palm fronds? It’s no HBO movie. If they’d been missing a month or two, okay, but 72 hours is chicken feed in the annals of men stranded on the open seas. How long was Tom Hanks all alone with “Wilson” in Cast Away? After their boat went down they swam “all night” to make it to the island, fine, but this was no one’s idea of a Herculean endeavor as they were wearing life preservers. JFK and his PT 109 Navy crew swam farther without life preservers and some of them had been burned or otherwise injured. Lt. William Bligh and 18 non-mutinous Bounty crew members managed a 3600-mile voyage in a 23-foot launch. And did anyone notice the size of one of the stranded sailors? Are we sure they were capsized by a rogue wave?

Shipwrecked sumo wrestler — pic taken by rescue pilot who spotted HELP spelled out on the beach with palm fronds.