A man, stranded at sea for over 400 days following a fishing expedition, defied death in a variety of extraordinary ways.
In 2012, Mexican José Salvador Alvarenga embarked on a fishing excursion with Ezequiel Córdoba, intending to spend two days on the Pacific Ocean’s waters before returning with their haul.
At first, the trip appeared to be going well, as they caught a lot of fish, but suddenly a storm hit their small boat.
Alvarenga attempted to sail to calmer seas while Córdoba emptied the water out of the boat, but with no oars or sails and the lone motor on the boat damaged, they were carried deeper into the world’s largest ocean.
They radioed for help, but there was little chance of finding them without a GPS signal or the ability to drop an anchor.
Meanwhile, the waves were beating the boat even harder, threatening to topple it over completely. The boat faced significant challenges due to the weight of the captured fish, forcing them to discard approximately 500 kg of it overboard.
Unfortunately, their radio malfunctioned and they had to discard additional equipment, leaving them unable to contact anyone. In the end, all they could do was turn over the icebox that had been used to keep the fish and huddle behind it for shelter from the weather, with the two men taking turns going out and bailing water from the boat.
Alvarenga’s primary source of refuge throughout his 438 days at sea was an overturned icebox. Far from any beach and unsure of their location, they devised a method to catch fish without any equipment, which required them to toss them overboard. Alvarenga would lean over the side of the boat, his arms submerged in the water, and close his hands when a fish swam by. Córdoba would then clean and gut the fish before cutting out strips of meat to dry in the sun, and they would occasionally capture a turtle or fowl. While Alvarenga had ‘cheated death’ by spending 438 days at sea on a tiny fishing boat with an icebox for shelter, Córdoba had not been as lucky.
After several weeks of subsisting on rainwater and uncooked meat, Córdoba felt unwell and refused to drink from a bottle held to his lips, according to The Guardian.
After his death, Alvarenga conversed with his body briefly before submerging it into thWhen the lone survivor washed up on Ebon Atoll, approximately 6,006 miles from Mexico, it would be a long time before he reached dry soil.m Mexico.
He had drifted for thousands of miles, and if he hadn’t struck the little patch of ground, he would have gone for thousands more before coming into contact with any land. Fortunately, there were individuals on the island who could finally accompany him on the lengthy trek back to Mexico. In 2015, writer Jonathan Franklin turned Alvarenga’s story into a book, 438 Days: An Extraordinary True Story of Survival at Sea.
