Entry #3 February 3rd 2014

Castaway wants to return to Mexico after Pacific ordeal

February 3rd 2014

BBC News 

"I want to go back to Mexico" Jose Salvador Albarengo. A castaway who says he spent more than a year adrift in the pacific ocean. Jose left mexico with a friend in a fiber glass boat, in December 2012. He apparently survived the 8,000 km (5,000-mile) ordeal by catching fish, birds and turtles with his bare hands. He also told reporters that his travelling companion died sat sea many months ago. There hasn't been any reports on how his 24ft boat ran into trouble or how his companion died. The castaway told the local deputy US ambassador Norman Barth, 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 voyage. His boat had many different sea animals growing on the bottom of it, with many turtle shells and fish leftovers inside. Castaways from Kiribati, to the south, frequently find land in the Marshall islands after ordeals of weeks or months at sea in small boats. 

How did this guy survive for this long at sea? I don't get how some people could survive with absolutely nothing for 14 months at sea. You can't drink the sea water, so you'd have to wait and wait for it to rain just so you can get a little sip of water. Catching fish must have been awfully hard. I couldn't imagine how many times he'd have to try and try again to get some food. But I guess when you're in a life or death situation, you know its what you need to do to survive and you keep trying. When Jose was found he must have been over joyed. He had been alone for months, and without real food for over a year. He did what he had to do and he survived.