WELLINGTON, New Zealand — It’s a story that almost defies belief: A man leaves Mexico in December 2012 for a day of shark fishing and ends up surviving 13 months on fish, birds and turtles before washing ashore on the remote Marshall Islands thousands of miles away.
But that’s what a man identifying himself as 37-year-old Jose Salvador Alvarenga told the U.S. ambassador in the Marshall Islands and the nation’s officials during a 30-minute meeting Monday before he was taken to a local hospital for monitoring. Alvarenga washed ashore on the tiny atoll of Ebon in the Pacific Ocean last week before being taken to the capital, Majuro, on Monday.
“It’s hard for me to imagine someone surviving 13 months at sea,” said Ambassador Tom Armbruster in Majuro. “But it’s also hard to imagine how someone might arrive on Ebon out of the blue. Certainly, this guy has had an ordeal and has been at sea for some time.”
Other officials were reacting cautiously to the Spanish-speaking man’s story while they try to piece together more information.
If true, the man’s ordeal would rank among the greatest tales ever of survival at sea.
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 the state of Chiapas, which would mean his journey covered a distance of more than 6,500 miles, if he drifted in a straight line.
Armbruster said the soft-spoken man complained of joint pain Monday and had a limp but was able to walk. He had long hair and a beard, the ambassador said, and rather than appearing emaciated he looked puffy in places, including around his ankles. Otherwise, he added, Alvarenga seemed in reasonable health.
Alvarenga says he left in his 23-foot fiberglass boat accompanied by a teen he knew only as Ezekiel. After about a month, Ezekiel died, the survivor told officials.
