Real-life castaway survived 438 days lost at sea

[a7mos]

"Buenos dias," Salvador Alvarenga said to his friend, who was propped up in the bow of their fishing boat. "What is death like?"

Ezequiel Córdoba, his body hardening and turning purple, did not reply. So Alvarenga answered for his dead sea mate. "Good. It is peaceful." Alvarenga looked out to the horizon, the ocean as endless as it had been for the last two months that they'd been lost at sea.

"Why wasn't it both of us? Why am I the one who continues to suffer?" Alvarenga asked the corpse. He remembered Córdoba, hysterical in the early days, crying about his mother and starving for tortillas. But in his final hours, the suffering lifted. Alvarenga craved the peace Córdoba had unfairly found by dying.

http://edition.cnn.com/2016/01/08/world/rewind-real-life-castaway/index.html

[greBit]

"Buenos dias," Salvador Alvarenga said to his friend, who was propped up in the bow of their fishing boat. "What is death like?"

Ezequiel Córdoba, his body hardening and turning purple, did not reply. So Alvarenga answered for his dead sea mate. "Good. It is peaceful." Alvarenga looked out to the horizon, the ocean as endless as it had been for the last two months that they'd been lost at sea.

"Why wasn't it both of us? Why am I the one who continues to suffer?" Alvarenga asked the corpse. He remembered Córdoba, hysterical in the early days, crying about his mother and starving for tortillas. But in his final hours, the suffering lifted. Alvarenga craved the peace Córdoba had unfairly found by dying.

http://edition.cnn.com/2016/01/08/world/rewind-real-life-castaway/index.html

It is an awesome survival story which needs commendations, it requires a lot of will power to go through such a thing and come out alive. It amazes what the human spirit is capable of when it is tested to the extreme.

[panju1]

Staying with a dead body for 6 days can be weird.
It is tales like these which make you realize how small your problems are. 

[gentlemand]

Staying with a dead body for 6 days can be weird.

I dunno. You can hang out with it. Sing to it. Put it in erotic positions. It'll never talk back to you, argue or steal your food. Sounds like the ideal relationship to me.

[salinizm]

"Buenos dias," Salvador Alvarenga said to his friend, who was propped up in the bow of their fishing boat. "What is death like?"

Ezequiel Córdoba, his body hardening and turning purple, did not reply. So Alvarenga answered for his dead sea mate. "Good. It is peaceful." Alvarenga looked out to the horizon, the ocean as endless as it had been for the last two months that they'd been lost at sea.

"Why wasn't it both of us? Why am I the one who continues to suffer?" Alvarenga asked the corpse. He remembered Córdoba, hysterical in the early days, crying about his mother and starving for tortillas. But in his final hours, the suffering lifted. Alvarenga craved the peace Córdoba had unfairly found by dying.

http://edition.cnn.com/2016/01/08/world/rewind-real-life-castaway/index.html

this is the most incredible story that i've ever heard ... it is the best and magical survival story ...

[xdrpx]

That's really brave of him to survive the incident, although now he doesn't brave himself to get back to the seas for fishing. Like it was mentioned simple optimism and his faith in God saved him and I'm glad it did.

[designerusa]

"Buenos dias," Salvador Alvarenga said to his friend, who was propped up in the bow of their fishing boat. "What is death like?"

Ezequiel Córdoba, his body hardening and turning purple, did not reply. So Alvarenga answered for his dead sea mate. "Good. It is peaceful." Alvarenga looked out to the horizon, the ocean as endless as it had been for the last two months that they'd been lost at sea.

"Why wasn't it both of us? Why am I the one who continues to suffer?" Alvarenga asked the corpse. He remembered Córdoba, hysterical in the early days, crying about his mother and starving for tortillas. But in his final hours, the suffering lifted. Alvarenga craved the peace Córdoba had unfairly found by dying.

http://edition.cnn.com/2016/01/08/world/rewind-real-life-castaway/index.html
[/

"Buenos dias," Salvador Alvarenga said to his friend, who was propped up in the bow of their fishing boat. "What is death like?"

Ezequiel Córdoba, his body hardening and turning purple, did not reply. So Alvarenga answered for his dead sea mate. "Good. It is peaceful." Alvarenga looked out to the horizon, the ocean as endless as it had been for the last two months that they'd been lost at sea.

"Why wasn't it both of us? Why am I the one who continues to suffer?" Alvarenga asked the corpse. He remembered Córdoba, hysterical in the early days, crying about his mother and starving for tortillas. But in his final hours, the suffering lifted. Alvarenga craved the peace Córdoba had unfairly found by dying.

http://edition.cnn.com/2016/01/08/world/rewind-real-life-castaway/index.html

i dont believe such stories... maybe it is a  mass media's doctored news.. how can a human being defeat nature without any experience on waging war on nature.. this is genuinely unbelievable...

[bitsmichel]

"Buenos dias," Salvador Alvarenga said to his friend, who was propped up in the bow of their fishing boat. "What is death like?"

Ezequiel Córdoba, his body hardening and turning purple, did not reply. So Alvarenga answered for his dead sea mate. "Good. It is peaceful." Alvarenga looked out to the horizon, the ocean as endless as it had been for the last two months that they'd been lost at sea.

"Why wasn't it both of us? Why am I the one who continues to suffer?" Alvarenga asked the corpse. He remembered Córdoba, hysterical in the early days, crying about his mother and starving for tortillas. But in his final hours, the suffering lifted. Alvarenga craved the peace Córdoba had unfairly found by dying.

http://edition.cnn.com/2016/01/08/world/rewind-real-life-castaway/index.html

More than a year on sea. How did he keep alive for such a long time?

[Jhanzo]

More than a year on sea. How did he keep alive for such a long time?

Sea birds began lingering around their boat. For them, the fiberglass vessel was an unexpected place to rest in the vast water. When Alvarenga grabbed the first one, he recalled, Córdoba stared at him in horror. He ripped it apart like a raw chicken. But unlike processed chicken, these sea birds had a vital source of liquid: their blood.

"We cut their throats and drank their blood. It made us feel better." Desperately hungry, they tried to eat every part of the thin birds, right down to their feathers. The only part they discarded were the contents of the birds' stomachs, which were often filled with plastic and garbage. Everything in the ocean became a possible food source -- sea turtles, small sharks, and seaweed. But the ocean and the skies rarely provided for them consistently. The men counted the days in between food. Three days, catch one fish. Another three days, catch two birds.

yum. I'd like to try sharks sometimes. only not on the middle of an ocean... and cooked.
good thing that he didn't get eaten by sharks. I've read that they can detect blood.

[UliJonHoth]

The story is just insane to think of or comprehend - if it is true. I remember hearing stories of people losing their boats at sea and floating on beer coolers or the story below where two guys floated for a month in a cooler, but 438 days...

The men said 18 other people were on board a 10-metre wooden fishing vessel when the boat sank, Australian Maritime Safety Authority spokeswoman Tracey Jiggins said.

"They said when it sank they all went into the water and they didn't have any floatation device," she said.

"It's remarkable that they survived, and that they were spotted by Coastwatch who were on a routine flight over the Torres Strait.

"Given that they have been in the water 25 days, our Rescue Coordination Centre Australia has made an assessment that they would not be able to survive for that period of time without any form of a flotation device," she said.

Ms Jiggins did not know what food the pair had or what they did while inside the ice box. News Ltd reported the men survived by drinking rain water that gathered at the bottom of the box and by eating pieces of fish that were also in the container.
The pair could not say exactly where the boat sank, Ms Jiggins said.

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2009/01/20/1232213549801.html