How Castaway Says He Survived 13 Months at Sea
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HILARY HOSIA/AFP/Getty Images(WELLINGTON, New Zealand) — Jose Salvador Alvarenga, 37, who says he spent more than a year lost at sea, certainly looked the part of castaway when he arrived in Majuro, the capitol city of the Marshall Islands, on Monday.
The long-haired fisherman, who had a scruffy beard, smiled and waved to a crowd of onlookers as he clutched what would have been one of his first cans of Coca-Cola since he washed up on the remote Marshall Islands, some 5,500 miles away from Mexico. Despite the ordeal, Alvarenga was still chubby faced.
If it’s true, his story is a real life version of the movie Castaway. Officials expressed cautious skepticism at the man’s story as they worked to verify details.
Alvarenga, who said he got lost after a shark fishing trip off the coast of Mexico in December 2012, said he survived 13 months drifting in the Pacific Ocean by eating fish, birds and turtles, a representative at the Washington D.C. Embassy of the Republic of the Marshall Islands told ABC News.
Alvarenga told officials he is from El Salvador but had been living and working in Mexico as a fisherman for 15 years before his ordeal.
More than a year after Alvarenga said he left Mexico, he said he swam ashore on Ebon, a tiny atoll in the Marshall Islands, where news of his remarkable tale of survival quickly spread.
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