Mexican Sailor Survives 16 Months Adrift (Updated)

The Daily Mail reports:

An emaciated man whose boat washed up on a remote Pacific atoll this week claims he has survived 16 months adrift on the Pacific. 

The Spanish-speaking man believed to be named Jose Ivan was discovered by locals on Thursday when his 24-foot fibreglass boat with propellerless engines floated onto the reef at Ebon Atoll. 

Ivan, who has long hair and beard, claims to have floated more than 12,500 kilometre (8,000 miles) from Mexico over the course of 16 months until he washed up on the tiny islands.

... Ivan indicated to Fjeldstad that he survived by eating turtles, birds and fish and drinking turtle blood when there was no rain. 

No fishing gear was on the boat and Ivan suggested he caught turtles and birds with his bare hands. There was a turtle on the boat when it landed at Ebon. 

Stories of survival in the vast Pacific are not uncommon. In 2006, three Mexicans made international headlines when they were discovered drifting, also in a small fibreglass boat near the Marshall Islands, in the middle of the ocean in their stricken boat, nine months after setting out on a shark-fishing expedition.

 Updated (2/5/2014): Fox News gives more details:

Mexico's Foreign Relations Department says the man told Mexico’s ambassador to the Philippines, Julio Camarena, that he set out from an area near the coastal town of Tonala in southern Chiapas state, which would mean his journey covered a distance of more than 6,500 miles, if he drifted in a straight line.

... the survivor told the following story:

He's a native of El Salvador but had lived in Mexico for 15 years and fishes for a man he knows as Willie, catching sharks for 25 pesos ($1.90) per pound.

On Dec. 21, 2012, Alvarenga left Mexico in his 23-foot fiberglass boat for a day’s fishing, accompanied by a teen he knew only as Ezekiel, who was between 15 and 18.

A storm blew the fishermen off course, and soon they were lost and adrift.

"He talked about scooping up little fish that swam alongside the boat and eating them raw," Armbruster said. "He also said he ate birds, and drank birds' blood."

After about a month, Ezekiel died, the survivor told officials.

Alvarenga also talked about eating turtles. Once near Ebon, he swam ashore.

"He thanked God, initially, that he had survived," the ambassador said. "He's very anxious to get back in touch with his employer, and also with the family of Ezekiel. That's his driving motivation at the moment."

In Costa Azul, a fishing hamlet near Tonala, fishing boat owner Villermino Rodriguez Solis, who assumes his son is the "Willie" that Alvarenga referred to, said Alvarenga and a companion had gone missing on Nov. 18, 2012, which would imply the sea odyssey lasted 14½ months.

"Here, his colleagues went out in boats to look for them. They spent four days looking for them," said Villermino, who expressed surprise that Alvarenga had been found alive in the Marshall Islands.

Residents of Costa Azul said they didn't know Alvarenga's real name. He had shown up looking for work years before, but worked from fishing camps along the coast. They knew him only by a nickname, "La Chancha," used to describe heavy-set people. It was clear he was an experienced fisherman, they said.

... Erik van Sebille, a Sydney-based oceanographer at the University of New South Wales, said there was a good chance a boat drifting off Mexico’s west coast would eventually be carried by currents to the Marshall Islands. He said such a journey would typically take 18 months to two years depending on the winds and currents, although 13 months was possible.

"The way that the currents in the Pacific work is that there is a very strong westerly current just north of the equator and that basically drives you directly from Mexico all the way toward Indonesia and in the path, you go right over the Marshall Islands," he said.