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It all happened in 2012, when the sailor left Mexico with one other person on what he assume would be a bog-standard two-day fishing trip. As it turns out, the then-mid-30-year-old, who had been fishing for sharks in Mexico for many years, had his life changed forever.
The poor man was out at sea for over a year (JOSE CABEZAS/AFP via Getty Images)
Things didn’t exactly start out on the right foot for this trip, however, because his close friend wasn’t available to join him.
He instead took inexperienced dayworker Ezequiel Córdoba, who was 22.
Initially, the whole thing was going well, so when a storm began to set in, they decided to keep fishing.
But that wasn’t a good idea.
When they attempted to return to land, waves flooded the engine as they drifted out to sea.
The pair were hammered by the storm – which went on for a whole week – and ended up losing most of the equipment they had on board.
They then realised that 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.
José Salvador Alvarenga was forced to survive on turtles, fish and bird blood (José Salvador Alvarenga)
Sadly, by week 10, Córdoba had died after eating a bird that made him ill. He slowly wasted away, leaving Alvarenga on his own.
US ambassador for the Marshall Islands Tom Armbruster told The Sun: “His companion, unfortunately, got sick, and then could not tolerate the bird diet, the bird blood in particular.”
Alvarenga began hallucinating that he was talking to his dead friend before he had to let him off the boat.
He said: “His companion stayed on board for a while.
“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 30 January, 2014, he swam to shore and found a beach house owned by a local couple who were able to wave down help.
