A Mexican man who was supposed to go on a two-day fishing trip with his friend spent 438 days lost at sea without food or water.
José Salvador Alvarenga and his young companion Ezequiel Córdoba planned to spend a couple days out from the coast of Mexico to return with their best catch in November 2012.
Instead, they were forced to navigate a severe weather storm, which took out their engine and left them adrift in the Pacific Ocean.
To keep afloat, the duo had to tip about 500kg of fish overboard, along with much of their other equipment.
Fisherman Salvador Alvarenga was stranded out at sea for 438 days (HILARY HOSIA/AFP via Getty Images)
All they were left with was an icebox which had been used to store the fish.
Córdoba was busy using the icebox to bail the water out, while the Alvarenga attempted to sail to safer waters.
Without GPS signal, the pair were all of a sudden left out at sea for what would be 438 days.
The only way they could eat was by using the icebox, as the fisherman would lean over the side of the boat to catch the fish swimming through.
Córdoba was tasked with gutting the fish and cutting off strips of the flesh to be dried out by the sun.
They were basically living off rain water and raw fish until Córdoba became seriously ill from eating a bird.
Alvarenga told The Guardian that his friend said one morning: “I am dying, I am dying, I am almost gone.
“Don’t think about that. Let’s take a nap,” Alvarenga replied, as his friend took a sip from a water bottle and died moments later.
Alvarenga blamed himself for Córdoba’s death (JOSE CABEZAS/AFP via Getty Images)
“I propped him up to keep him out of the water. I was afraid a wave might wash him out of the boat,” Alvarenga said.
“I cried for hours.”
The next morning, the fisherman said he would talk to the corpse, as a way of keeping sane.
He would ask: “How do you feel? How was your sleep? I slept good, and you? Have you had breakfast?
“First I washed his feet. His clothes were useful, so I stripped off a pair of shorts and a sweatshirt.
“I put that on – it was red, with little skull-and-crossbones – and then I dumped him in. And as I slid him into the water, I fainted.
“What could I do alone? Without anyone to speak with? “Why had he died and not me? I had invited him to fish. I blamed myself for his death.”
Having drifted around for roughly 6,700 miles, Alvarenga finally touched land on Ebon Atoll in the Marshall Islands in January 2014.
Locals helped him to recover and eventually return home.
