4 Feb 2014

Castaway washes ashore after ‘year at sea’

An El-Salvador fisherman washes up in the Marshall Islands after apparently being adrift in the Pacific Ocean for a year, and surviving on turtle blood.

Jose Salvador Alvarenga (picture: Getty)

Jose Salvador Alvarenga, 37, told officials that he set sail on a shark fishing trip from Mexico in late December 2012. He was found on a remote coral atoll on Monday, 6,200 miles away from where he said he started.

Mr Alvarenga said he had survived for a year by drinking turtle blood and catching fish and birds with his bare hands.

“It was supposed to be a one-day fishing expedition, but they were blown off course by the northern winds,” Thomas Armbruster, the US ambassador to the Marshall Islands said.

Mr Alvarenga was taken by a police patrol boat to Majuro, the capital of the Marshall Islands. Authorities said he set sail with a fellow fisherman, aged 15 to 18, but that the teenager had died one month into the ordeal.

Jack Niedenthal, a filmmaker based on Majuro, told Reuters that it appeared that the man had “done some serious time at sea”.

“He got off the boat with a very bushy beard,” he said. “He’s having trouble walking, his legs are very skinny. I’m not ready to call this a hoax; I think this guy has done some serious time at sea.”

El Salvador’s foreign ministry said it was working with the Marshall Islands to return Mr Alvarenga home.