Pacific castaway arrives back in civilisation

Digital Journal ^ | 02/03/2014 | Giff Johnson

[BuckeyeTexan]

The surviving fisherman was found disoriporting a bushy beard and clutching a can of Coke, a castaway who says he survived more than a year adrift in the Pacific Ocean arrived in the Marshall Islands capital Majuro on Monday.

A male nurse had to help the man previously identified as Jose Ivan down the gangplank of a police patrol boat after a 22-hour trip from the remote coral atoll where he washed ashore last week after apparently setting sail from Mexico on December 24, 2012.

About 1,000 curious onlookers crowded the dock for a glimpse of the long-haired fisherman, who smiled and waved briefly before he was whisked away for a medical check-up at Majuro Hospital.

The castaway told US ambassador Thomas Armbruster, who was acting as an interpreter for Marshall Islands authorities, that he was originally from El Salvador but had been living in Mexico for 15 years before his epic voyage.

And foreign ministry officials said he told them during a debriefing that he was a 37-year-old whose full name was Jose Salvador Albarengo.

He said he lived in Tapachula, near the Mexican border with Guatemala, and worked for a company named Camoronera Dela Costa.

Albarengo said he was on a shark-fishing expedition with a youth named Xiquel when strong winds blew them off course and they became lost.

Albarengo said the boy, described as 15- to 18-years old, died a few weeks into the ordeal because he could not eat raw bird meat.

[BuckeyeTexan]

Pictures, maps, and more details at the site.

[Brooklyn Attitude]

My skeptical nature thinks he looks awfully well fed for a guy lost at sea for 400 days.

[PetroniusMaximus]

“My skeptical nature thinks he looks awfully well fed for a guy lost at sea for 400 days.”

... and there is that missing boy.

[Buckeye McFrog]

Gilligan?

[Blood of Tyrants]

Take that, Pi.

[C210N]

...and more details at the site.

Will wait for the movie to come out. Should have a Tom Hanks or equivalent.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

My skeptical nature thinks he looks awfully well fed for a guy lost at sea for 400 days.

Lots of fat in raw seagull. </sarcasm>

[Alter Kaker]

A male nurse

This is the year 2014. It is no longer extraordinary for a nurse to be a man, nor has it been for approximately 40 years. Similarly, a female pilot similarly do not need to be described as an "aviatrix."

[TurboZamboni]

‘Wrong Way’ Feldman.

[Red Badger]

disoriporting?....I hate it when that happens.......

[Gamecock]

Looks like he could stand to go on a diet.

[Red Badger]

Weeeellll, there was another guy that ‘disappeared’....................

[oh8eleven]

My skeptical nature thinks he looks awfully well fed for a guy lost at sea for 400 days.
Tom Hanks looked a lot worse, and he was only acting ...

[Red Badger]

[latina4dubya]

My skeptical nature thinks he looks awfully well fed for a guy lost at sea for 400 days.

i am thinking he must have been 400 lbs. when he started his expedition...

[Theoria]

The unluckiest Thor Heyerdahl that I've seen in a while. Well, since at least Jesús Vidaña.

[Red Badger]

[bert]

A great FReeper gave us all this amazinf site last week. It will show what happened to the boat.

http://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/surface/level/orthographic=-97.93,35.39,400

[Red Badger]

Crew: 2 (1 died during the voyage)...................

[arthurus]

He is not the first to make that trip. He just took the longest to do it. Others have spent 7 months and more in the crossing. I would expect such a person to be a little darker of skin, though.