Incredible-Man survives more than a year adrift in the Pacific

José Salvador Alvarenga's 13 months at sea backed by fishermen and officials
Castaways's boat went missing from Mexican port in late 2012, lining up with claim of 13-month sea ordeal

"...The idea that anybody could survive so long at sea in such a small boat with no cover from the elements, while living on such a restricted diet, let alone end the ordeal with little more than swollen ankles, has fishermen scratching their heads in Mexico as well. “It's incredible to survive that long,” boat owner Cesar Castillo said. “There was a case from around here of fishermen who survived 27 days before they were rescued by a Japanese ship but it's hard to think how anybody could go more than six or seven months without getting scurvy at least.”

But if Alvarenga's survival surprises many, few are positing theories to explain how else he might have crossed 6,200 miles of open ocean to arrive on the Marshall Islands in a boat that is, at least, very similar to the one it appears he set out in back in 2012.

“It's hard for me to imagine someone surviving 13 months at sea,” the US Ambassador in Majuro, Tom Armbruster, told the Associated Press. “But it is also hard to imagine how someone might arrive on Ebon out of the blue.”..."

 

I wonder what happened to Ezequiel.

 

I'd say he smelled.

He had a nickname that implied he was fat; IF he indeed was carrying lots of extra fuel/food around in the form of excess body fat it could help explain how he survived that long. That's why the body stores fat you know, to survive long periods of famine.

 

Castaway from Mexico: First photos of Jose Salvador Alvarenga's boat
Photographs emerge of small damaged boat on which fisherman Jose Salvador Alvarenga apparently spent 13 months floating across the Pacific

"...Amid fierce speculation about the veracity of Mr Alvarenga's tale, the photographs show that the 37-year-old landed in the Marshall Islands in a heavily-damaged small fibreglass vessel with a broken motor.

The boat, about 24-feet long, was empty aside from a small blue container in which Mr Alvarenga would hide, to seek shelter from the sun. It was emblazoned with the name Camaroneros de la Costa, apparently the fishing cooperative for which Mr Alvarenga worked in Mexico.

Mr Alvarenga washed onto a remote atoll last week, saying he had been adrift for more than a year and survived on birds, sharks, turtles, fish and barnacles. He said he left Mexico in December 2012 on a one-day fishing trip with a 15-year-old, whom he knew only as Ezekiel. The teenager died four months into the voyage after refusing to eat...."

Still wonder about Ezekiel.

 

Jose Salvador Alvarenga: a tale of ocean survival that smells a bit fishy

"...Erik van Sebille, an ocean circulation expert at the University of NSW, has an answer to doubts that the castaway's amazing tale of survival is true: “garbage”.

Tracking of what happens to rubbish, such as plastics, tossed or washed into the seas suggests a drifting boat from Mexico could have made its way to the Marshall Islands. (See how the trash travels here.)

“I think his story is correct” at least as far as the science of ocean currents goes, said Dr van Sebille.

“It would take about one to two years, approximately” to drift all the way across the Pacific, he said.

As it was, the castaway was lucky to make landfall because his next and final stop would probably have been the giant floating garbage patch in the north Pacific between Hawaii and California.

“If he would have not had the fortune to hit a beach, then he probably would have ended up in the garbage patch,” the research fellow at UNSW's Climate Change Research Centre said.

“His boat would have ended up floating around there for hundreds of years.”

The garbage patch is probably about the size of Western Australia and growing each year as ocean circulation draws ever more rubbish into the giant soup."

"...Alvarenga said he was on a shark-fishing expedition with a youth named Xiquel when strong winds blew them off course and they became lost in December 2012.

Alvarenga said the boy, described as 15- to 18-years old, died a few weeks into the ordeal because he could not eat raw bird meat...."

"Stories of survival in the vast Pacific are not uncommon.

In 2006 three Mexicans made international headlines when they were discovered drifting, also in a small fibreglass boat near the Marshall Islands, nine months after setting out on a shark-fishing expedition.

They survived on a diet of rainwater, raw fish and seabirds, with their hopes kept alive by reading the Bible...."

The more I read the more I believe it's true.

Still wonder about Ezekiel though.

 

Castaway José Salvador Alvarenga's tale speaks to our deep fears of being adrift

In our safe, cosseted, 21st-century lives, the wild oceans act as a reminder of our physical and psychic frailty

(really)

"...."We had just finished a day of shark fishing when the motor died," he said. "I wasn't worried at first but I couldn't get a radio signal, and meanwhile there was a wind that pushed us further out."

His mood darkened as he described how Ezequiel, who he says was aged 15 to 18, died four months into their voyage, unable to survive on a diet of raw bird flesh, turtle blood and his own urine.

"I tried to get him to hold his nose and eat but he kept vomiting," Mr Alvarenga said.

He said the teenager died of starvation and he pushed his body into the ocean. "What else could I do?"

Mr Alvarenga said he tried to keep track of time as the sun moved across the sky but weeks and months eventually blurred.

Every so often sea turtles bumped into his boat.

"I was able to reach over the side of the boat and grab them," he said.

He also caught fish and learnt to stand still in the rocking boat to snatch approaching sea birds....."

This guy had the will to live, period.

 

Marshall Islands Castaway Jose Salvador Alvarenga: I Did Not Eat Dead Shipmate

...knew this one was coming, feel sorry for the guy.