438 Days: An Extraordinary True Story of Survival at Sea

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I enjoyed the book. The descriptions of the men’s ordeal are really well written, and the story of the main protagonist is well set out before main part of the book unfolds. It’s a bit of a niche read but pretty unputdownable once you get into it.” It was raining the day Córdoba died, recalls Alvarenga. The two men, as they’d done almost daily for weeks, were huddled inside the icebox. They prayed. Córdoba asked Alvarenga to visit his mother and said that he was now with God.

438 Days by Jonathan Franklin | Waterstones

Written by Giff Johnson, the first story went out under the Agence France-Presse (AFP) banner on 31 January and outlined the remarkable contours of Alvarenga’s story. Reporters in Hawaii, Los Angeles and Australia scrambled to reach the island to interview this alleged castaway. The single phone line on Ebon became a battleground, as reporters tried to discover tantalising details. Alvarenga’s story had enough hard facts to make it plausible: the initial missing person report, the search-and-rescue operation, the correlation of his drift with known ocean currents, and the fact that he was extremely weak. Salvador Alvarenga was a barely literate Salvadoran fisherman who fled to Mexico for safety. Alvaranega was a hard partier who spent money as soon as it came in. Although he kept his cards close to the vest, he was a generous friend and employee who would lend money or his time, such as when other fishermen went missing.a b c Aleman, Marcos (February 4, 2014). "Sea survivor's Salvadoran family thought he died". Chicago Sun-Times . Retrieved February 4, 2014. Jose Salvador Alvarenga and the science of survival". CBC.ca. Associated Press. February 6, 2014 . Retrieved February 6, 2014.

man who vanished for 14 months Lost at sea: the man who vanished for 14 months

With his knife, he cut away the ragged line of buoys. It was a drastic move. In the open ocean, with no sea anchor, he could readily flip during even a moderate tropical storm. But Alvarenga could see the shoreline clearly and he gambled that speed was of greater importance than stability. Praying is a good thing to do. It doesn't work in quite the way anticipated. After all the gods you beseech to save you are the very ones that let you get into that predicament in the first place perhaps they weren't paying attention and might with a lot of praise and bargaining might now. I say gods because Hindus and Buddhists have equally valid deities to the monotheistic sets.. But it calms you down, and gives you hope. This is better than wild panic and despair. On the other hand you could meditate, same results. Alvarenga had a terrible singing voice made worse by an overdose of confidence. His rendition was off-key and overflowing with nationalistic pride. Convinced by the enthusiasm of his off-the-cuff performance, the police released him.As this old world pursues its endless journey round the sun, many are the tales of death and disaster on the high seas. Few indeed are those that tell of near-miraculous survival, fed by human courage, faith, strength and intelligence. This is one such." I propped him up to keep him out of the water. I was afraid a wave might wash him out of the boat,” Alvarenga told me. “I cried for hours.” I not only appreciate the incredible story told, a story that has much to tell anyone who has ever felt themselves facing seemingly insurmountable odds (which is pretty much everyone), but also the tremendous research which creates the basis for the tale, and the heartfelt sympathy and respect that Mr. Franklin gave to Salvador Alvarenga, our protagonist. This story is a feast for the mind as well as the heart. Somehow, I never heard about this man. I can’t believe this happened in my lifetime and I missed the news about it.

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Aleman, Marcos (February 4, 2014). "Jose Salvador Alvarenga's family say his survival 'is a miracle' as incredulity remains at epic 10,000-km ocean voyage". National Post . Retrieved February 6, 2014.We have no anchor,” Alvarenga said. He had noticed it was missing before setting off, but didn’t think he needed it on a deep-sea mission. Costa Azul is a lost corner of Chiapas, Mexico’s poorest state and a region where emigrants tend not to stop as they continue on the long trek north to the United States. Few arrivals see much of an economic salvation in the tattered local economy. But the thirty-year-old Alvarenga wasn’t looking at land—his eyes were focused on the Pacific Ocean and had been since he was eleven years old and had run away from school to live at the beach with friends. Costa Azul would serve not as home but as home base. He would launch seaward for multiday ocean journeys to the richest remaining fishing grounds along Mexico’s plundered coastal ecosystems.

438 Days: An Extraordinary True Story of Survival at Sea

How do you go for a swim, or to scrape tasty barnacles from the bottom of the boat when there are sharks around? How do you overcome the depression of having fishermen wave to you from a container boat and pass on by? Franklin is a superb writer, chronicler of the only person ever to been documented surviving and living off the sea for more than a year.

Who survives 14 months at sea? Only a Hollywood screenwriter could write a tale in which such a journey ends happily. I was sceptical, but as a Guardian reporter in the region, I began to investigate. It turned out there were dozens of witnesses who had seen Alvarenga leave shore, who had heard his SOS. When he washed ashore (in the same boat that he had left Mexico on), thousands of miles away, he was steadfast in his rejection of interviews – even posting a note on his hospital door begging the press to disappear. Wearing tattered clothes and with his hair and beard matted wildly from 14 months at sea, Alvarenga stepped off the boat to news cameras and reporters. In days, he went from the most solitary existence imaginable to the most-wanted interview on the planet. By 30% in I was hooked (no pun intended). The things hunger and dehydration can make a person do is endless. Somehow they manage to stay hydrated by drinking their own urine and turtle blood and become skilled at killing sea birds and catching fish with their bare hands. If that’s not adapting I don’t know what is. This is only 30 days in of the 438 he is adrift so I couldn’t comprehend at this point how bad it was going to get later on in the book. Oh it got bad. This comes in the awful blow of his ship mate dying due to the conditions. Somehow alvarenga manages to keep some of his sanity and after 438 days stranded in the open water, miraculously makes it to land.