On November 17, 2012, Salvadoran fisherman José Salvador Alvarenga left Costa Azul, near Pijijiapan in Chiapas, Mexico, for a short shark-fishing trip.
Young Ezequiel Córdoba was with him. Their boat was open, about 25 feet (8 meters) long.
They had gone out to catch fish, not to cross an ocean.
A storm wrecked the engine and the navigation gear.
The two men began to drift across the Pacific.
Córdoba died on the way.
Alvarenga was alone.
What kept him alive?
He ate raw fish, turtles, small birds and sharks, and he drank rainwater. In despair he swallowed bits of his own nails and sang psalms.
He counted the moons, one by one.
On the 15th cycle he saw land.
On January 30, 2014, people found him on Ebon Atoll in the Marshall Islands.
He was naked, gripping a knife and shouting in Spanish.
He was about 37, thinner, but not the wasted skeleton expected after so long without a shore.
The little open boat was never meant for a year at sea.
He still reached land alive.
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