José Salvador Alvarenga Spent 14 months Drifting In The Pacific Oceans

José Salvador Alvarenga, a Salvadoran fisherman, was found in the Marshall Islands after spending 14 months adrift aboard a fishing boat in the Pacific Ocean.

On January 30, he swam to the shore at Tile Islet, a small island in Ebon Atoll. Two locals found him naked, wielding a knife, and shouting in Spanish.

The Beginning

Alvarenga was born in the village of Garita Palmera, Ahuachapán, El Salvador. He left El Salvador in 2002 to work as a fisherman in Mexico for four years.

Alvarenga set out from the fishing community of Costa Azul in Mexico on November 17, 2012.

José Salvador Alvarenga had been shark fishing in Mexico for many years by the time he was 33. He would typically venture out on the Pacific Ocean for two to three days with a friend, catching sharks and selling them for 50 cents per pound when he got back to land.

On a Saturday in November 2012, Alvarenga's regular fishing partner was unable to join him, so he hired a day laborer from the beach instead: Ezequiel Córdoba, a 22-year-old beginner with little maritime knowledge. They would spend more than a year at sea.

Alvarenga and Ezequiel embarked on a two-day expedition in November 2012. Shortly after setting out, their boat, a seven-meter (23-foot) topless fiberglass skiff with a single outboard motor and a refrigerator-sized icebox for storing fish, was blown off course by a five-day storm that wrecked the motor and most of the portable equipment.

Despite having caught approximately 500 kilos (1,100 lb) of fresh fish, the pair was obliged to dump everything overboard. Alvarenga was able to contact his employer via two-way radio and request assistance before the radio's battery died.

With no sails or paddles, no anchor, no running lights, and no other means of communication, the boat began to drift across the wide ocean. Much of the fishing equipment was either destroyed or lost during the storm, leaving them with only a few basic supplies and little food.

The search group arranged by Alvarenga's employer found no evidence of the missing men and gave up after two days due to poor visibility. As the days turned into weeks, they learned to scavenge their food from whatever sources were available.

With his bare hands, Alvarenga caught fish, turtles, jellyfish, and seabirds. When possible, they collected drinking water from rains, but more often than not, they were compelled to drink turtle blood or their own urine.

According to Alvarenga, Córdoba lost all hope roughly four months into the voyage after falling ill from the uncooked food and eventually died of starvation by refusing to eat. Alvarenga stated that he considered suicide four days after Córdoba died.

He claimed that Córdoba made him vow not to eat his corpse after he died, so he kept it aboard the boat. He occasionally talked to the body and, after six days, worried he was going nuts, so he threw it overboard.

The End

His journey has been estimated to be between 8,900 and 10,800 kilometers long.

He sighted land after counting his 15th lunar cycle: a tiny, barren islet that turned out to be a distant part of the Marshall Islands. He abandoned his boat and swam to land on January 30, 2014, where he discovered a beach house owned by a local couple. Alvarenga had traveled for 438 days.

The doctor who treated him noted he was anemic and dehydrated with severely low blood pressure.

He was being treated by a doctor, who noted on February 6 that his condition had "gone downhill" since the day before and that he was being treated for dehydration with an IV drip.

Alvarenga was deemed healthy enough to travel back to El Salvador after spending 11 days in hospital. But he was found to have problems falling asleep, and had a fear of water.

The story of his voyage was too hard to believe, they had to subject him to a polygraph test which he passed.