On a rock island like this, Professor managed to survive several  weeks using Essene methods

Search for the Ageless, Vol.1, p. 199:

After a warm farewell, I proceeded to Chetumal with the blessing of my friend and his letter of recommendation in my pocket. Chetumal, at that time, was a very small, sleepy, but charming and relaxed town. Typical of a tropical climate, it was steaming during the day, but nighttime brought ocean breezes and a delightful coolness. I visited the owner of the boat, gave him the letter of recommendation, and without further ado he informed me the ship would sail the next day, carrying a cargo of tons of chicle -  that strange substance used to make chewing gum - and its destination was Tampico.

It was a rather large boat with a friendly crew who made me welcome right away. Shortly after we embarked, everyone started to sing a song from his native land, and I sang Au Clair de la Lune and Alouette and a few other French songs with great success. We all became good friends and for some time our voyage was without incident.

But not for long. Someone forgot to pay close enough attention to the meteorological announcements on the radio and all of a sudden, a few hours after sunset, the stars were blocked from view by heavy clouds and a wind came up which got stronger and stronger. The boat began to pitch wildly, and I realized the age of the craft as I heard all kinds of strange cracking noises from every direction.

The crew worked frantically to save the situation but their efforts could not change the fact that the boat was simply coming apart under the enormous Strain and pressures generated by the storm. The Captain finally approached me with a very somber face and asked me, "Senor Doctor, sabe usted nadar?" (Can you swim?) I told him that I could. "Well," he said, "in that case I suggest you jump into the ocean and swim-because very soon the boat will be in pieces!" 

SWIMMING FOR MY LIFE

So we jumped into the ocean! It was certainly not what I had expected when I boarded the friendly freighter in Chetumal. The month was December and the water was like ice. The huge waves which were breaking up the boat were even worse now that I was in their midst, and every time I wanted to breathe, a mountain of freezing water fell over me. In desperation I soon developed a kind of rhythmic breathing to coincide with the cycle of the waves, breathing every time between two of them. I was extremely grateful for my previous training in France in long-distance swimming which came to my aid now in a struggle for life. Long-distance swimming was one of my specialties, but I never swam with such motivation as I did then! I surely would have won first prize if I had used so much energy in a game or competition.

But at the moment there were no thoughts in my head at all about anything save the determination to survive. I swam and swam in a haze of numbness - on and on and on for I don't know how many hours. An eternity passed - an eternity of freezing ocean and pounding waves. Sometime during that endless night the waves stopped, though the water was still as cold. My body desperately wanted to stop swimming, hut I mused that it was a very inglorious way to end my terrestrial career - after surviving the perilous journey to the Hunzas, the killer ants and tropical fever in equatorial Africa, and Fred Marchal's driving, was I now going to be liquidated (literally) just because an elderly boat had fallen apart in a storm? The answer was no! And I gathered up the last remaining dregs of my strength and continued to swim.

THREE SURVIVORS ON A ROCKY ISLAND:

THE COOK, THE CAPTAIN, AND ME

After hours and hours, finally my perseverance paid off. Under my foot I suddenly felt a rock! At first, I thought it was my imagination. But it was a rock, and as I moved forward, I felt another, and then another, and at last a much larger rock which I was able to pull myself up to and sit on. What a welcome and beautiful rock that was! It was just starting to get light and I looked around, trying to spot any other sign of life. Something stirred on a rock nearby, and to my profound delight and surprise it turned out to be the ship's cook! We stumbled toward each other and embraced with emotion, still in a suspended state of disbelief that we had somehow, miraculously survived. However, we were still in danger of freezing to death. Our limbs were completely without feeling, paralyzed from the cold, and when the sun finally came up, the temperature seemed to plummet still further. In spite of our numbness, we tried to move around a bit to achieve a little warmth, and we even made attempts to massage each other in order to stimulate our circulation.

Suddenly, our attention was drawn to another form struggling up to the rock-it was the Captain of the ship! Apparently the same current had drawn all three of us to these rocks. He did not see us as we drew near, and even in our miserable condition my sense of humor refused to be daunted and I asked him, "Can you swim?"

He looked up as if he had seen a ghost. "What?" he stammered. "You, here?"

"Yes, yes," I said, "and look who is also here - the cook!"

So we shivered together, trying to keep each other warm with what little body heat remained to us, waiting for salvation until the sun would burn off the dreadful cold.

HUNGER AND THIRST ON THE ROCKS

After two endless hours, a tropical morning sun thawed our weary bones and our temperatures returned to somewhere near normal. Then we were faced with another crisis: we were ravenously and desperately hungry! All that exercise of swimming in an icy ocean had created enormous appetites with very little prospect of being assuaged. We had already established the fact that our rocks were the outer fringe of an uninhabited island where there was absolutely nothing to eat. Nevertheless, we began to look around, as it was better than doing nothing.

It was the cook who suddenly spotted a huge turtle and decided to go after it. I warned him not to, but he was already tasting turtle soup and ran off to tackle the creature. But he slipped on some seaweed and somehow the turtle wound up on top of him. He yelled at us for help, and it took a lot of effort on our part to push the turtle off him. The huge creature lumbered off, no doubt quite taken aback at this unusual interruption of his morning routine, and we helped the poor cook to his feet, shaken and bruised but otherwise unhurt. However, we still had our enormous hunger, and that was a problem not so easily solved.

But I intended to solve it. I did not intend to die of hunger after escaping thus far the wrecked ship and the freezing ocean. Looking around, I noticed some sea birds, large birds which the Mexicans call pajaros bobos. I noticed also that in a certain area there were more sea birds than in others. So I called to the others to follow me, and we walked toward the place where a great many of them were congregating. It was there we discovered the eggs! They were large, about the size of my fist, and no gourmet banquet could ever have looked tastier to us at that moment. We each picked up some eggs which looked fresh and consumed as many as we could. We ate swiftly, silently, and with great intensity, and soon we felt almost human again. We knew that we had averted the danger of starving. But now another obstacle loomed before us: we were all terribly thirsty from eating the eggs, and we knew that small islands such as these have no source of water readily available. We faced yet another threat of death, and it was ironic that we might die of thirst while surrounded by an ocean of water!

GOOD OLD PLINIUS COMES TO MY RESCUE:

WE LICK THE GRASS

I went off by myself to think, because I knew the problem of water was more serious than a lack of food. I also knew that searching for water would be fruitless and only expend our small store of energy to no avail; so I began to concentrate, walking up and down. And soon the answer came to me.

I remembered a scroll I had read at the Benedictine monastery at Monte Cassino by the great Roman naturalist, Plinius, in which he described the habits of the Essenes at the Dead Sea, another area of the world where there is virtually no water. Plinius told of how in the early years on the desert, before their oasis was established, the Essenes would awaken at dawn, participate in their morning communions with the forces of nature (which they called Angels), and then "partake of the morning dew from the desert flowers and plants," which meant that they spent perhaps half an hour licking dew from plants-dew which was prolific in those early morning hours before the sun began to burn high in the sky. This was how the Essenes managed to survive in the desert without water.

I quickly looked around-sure enough, there was still a lot of dew on the sea plants and grass at that early morning hour-and I immediately got down on all fours and began to lick the moisture from the plants. My friends came over hurriedly, thinking I had fallen down, and when they saw me on my hands and knees licking the plants they exchanged looks as if to say, "What a pity! With all these experiences he has gone completely mad!" But still I continued to lick the dew, and after a while it dawned on them what I was doing. They saw that I was beginning to satisfy my thirst, and that was enough motivation for them to try it, too. Soon all three of us were on all fours, going from plant to plant, searching for dew which had to be licked off laboriously. It may sound simple but it was, in fact, very difficult work, and it took more than an hour of effort before we had more or less satisfied our thirst. But at least I had found a way, thanks to Plinius and the Essenes, to keep us from dying of thirst.

For the next eleven or twelve days we followed the same program :

eggs from the pajaros bobos, followed by the life-saving dew which we licked off the plants. It was a strange diet, to say the least, but it saved our lives. I was thankful that the pajaros bobos were not more aggressive birds, but allowed us to share their eggs. It may not have been so romantic as the legend of the raven who fed St. Benedict-but those large sea birds will always have my eternal gratitude for coming to our rescue, and a permanent place in my heart.

Around the thirteenth day, we saw a most welcome sight: a fisherman in a boat who rescued us and took us, not to Tampico, which was our destination, but to Vera Cruz. Needless to say, we were very happy to leave our island, which was definitely not the tropical paradise most people think of when they envision remote, deserted islands.

HAUNTED BY EGGS IN VERA CRUZ

My friends and fellow survivors, the cook and the Captain, wanted to celebrate when we reached civilization again, so the Captain acted as our host for dinner at the best restaurant in Vera Cruz. We were treated as heroes after our ordeal-a good thing, because in our bedraggled state we otherwise would not have gotten past the front door.

The waiter approached and very courteously asked for our order. I asked him if he had anything other than meat, as I was a vegetarian. He beamed and nodded, "Oh yes, Senor, we have eggs!"

"NO!" I shouted, at the top of my lungs. The poor man jumped back several feet, probably thinking I had lost my reason as a result of the shipwreck. The Captain came to his rescue and explained that we had been living on eggs for twelve days and could not be blamed for having an aversion to them. Somewhat mollified, the waiter retreated to the kitchen, returning after a few minutes with delicious frijoles (beans), tortillas, and other delicious dishes. We all agreed it was the best meal of our lives, and we also came to the unanimous conclusion that we never wanted to see eggs again.

Once on land, the Captain and the cook were soon in touch with their families and resumed their normal lives. I was not so lucky. All my possessions were at the bottom of the ocean, and I was completely without funds, clothes or even identification. Fortunately, however, I had managed to get to Mexico, I spoke Spanish, and the good Captain lent me a hundred pesos which would take me to Mexico City and the French Consul. I thanked him gratefully, embraced my two friends again with emotion, and set off for the capital.