José Salvador Alvarenga was the sole survivor of a misfortunate fishing trip
Britt Jones
A man who survived for 15 months out at sea has told his fascinating story of survival and it’s insane.
When José Salvador Alvarenga left Mexico in 2012 with a friend for a two-day fishing trip, he wasn’t to know that he would end up out at sea for 438 days.
He spoke with former US ambassador for the Marshall Islands Tom Armbruster about what he went through to live with nothing there to sustain himself.
Alvarenga had been fishing for sharks in Mexico for decades, but on that fateful day, everything would change.
Alvarenga was 33 on the day of that trip and was meant to go fishing with a friend.
However, when the friend wasn’t available, he took inexperienced dayworker Ezequiel Córdoba, who was 22.
Initially, the trip was going well, so when a storm began to set in, they decided to keep fishing.
But this wasn’t a good idea
The poor man was out at sea for over a year. (JOSE CABEZAS/AFP via Getty Images)
It was when they attempted to return to land, waves flooded the engine and they drifted out to sea, where they were hammered by the storm, losing most of the equipment they had on board.
The storm continued for a whole week and by the time it subsided, they were lost at sea.
The pair realised the only way they could survive was by getting creative with their hunting skills.
With no food or water with them, they decided to take to eating birds’ blood, turtles and fish.
However, by week 10, Córdoba had died after eating a bird that made him ill and he slowly wasted away, leaving Alvarenga on his own.
Armbruster told The Sun: “His companion, unfortunately, got sick, and then could not tolerate the bird diet, the bird blood in particular.”
When Alvarenga began hallucinating that he was talking to his dead friend, who was lying in the boat, he decided he had to let him go.
He said: “His companion stayed on board for a while.
José Salvador Alvarenga was forced to survive on turtles, fish and bird blood. (José Salvador Alvarenga)
“In fact, Mr Alvarenga spoke to him and then felt like he was going a little bit crazy, and he was buried at sea.
“He said that he was talking to the body, and think that then he felt like he was losing his mind a bit. You know that he was talking back to him.”
During his time alone out at sea, he did come across one instance where he could have been saved.
He saw a shipping container and waved down the boat, only for the crew on board to wave at him and continue on their way.
Armbruster said: “He saw a container ship go by and he signalled to it.
“The men on board the crew waved, and then just kept going, and you could tell that that really crushed him.”
“That was probably the moment where he lost faith and humanity and wondered if he was ever going to get out of this.
After everything Alvarenga went through to survive, he a finally found a tiny islet, which turned out to be a remote corner of the Marshall Islands.
On January 30, 2014, he swam to shore and found a beach house owned by a local couple who were able to wave down help.