Castaway---

[Bertramp]

I saw a newcast that had a guy claiming to have been a castatway for the past 13 months.
Maybe naive ..... and I'm far from a lightweight, but his face is fatter than mine !!
Anxious to see how this unfolds or learn some survival skills from him, because in 13 months as a castaway, I would have dropped some serious poundage !!

[CaptPatrick]

Castaway survives 13 months adrift at sea

[Tony Meola]

None of the stories about him make sense. He claims he went fishing on Dec 21, 2012. The village he left from said he left Nov. 2012 in a bad storm. His family has not seen him for 8 years, and there seems to be a question about who really left that day to go fishing.

This should get good. But yes, no sun tan, No open sores, In fact he looks pretty good for guy who drifted for a year.

[mike ohlstein]

The next story will probably involve a tiger in the boat.....

[Dug]

At least a raccoon...

[IRGuy]

I have a good friend who holds the world's record for the longest single handed survival at sea in an inflatable life raft... 76 days. He almost died.. was skin and bones, lost most of his hair, and part of his eyesight. He survived on fish he was able to spear, and water from both rain and a solar still he rigged from two that failed. He was the boating consultant for the movie Mike refers to.. "The life of Pi" a year or so ago.

His name is Steve Callahan.. he went on to write the book "Adrift".

The guy above looks pretty healthy, and a lot of people are saying he is BS.. I say he is 100% BS.

[BCBertie]

"Marshall Islands Journal editor Giff Johnson said: "They (locals) said when he came off he was just in a ragged pair of underwear, a long beard; the boat looked like it had been in the water for a long time."

Whether the whole story is true or not, it isn't trivial to get a 23-foot boat to that part of the world...

Cheers!

John

[Dug]

I read Adrift. That is a hell of an ordeal. Pretty much cured me of my interest in long offshore journey's alone. I would love to get in touch with him sometime. I have his book. Amazing story. Could not have been anything remotely easy...

[JohnV8r]

The story looks to be legit:

In Costa Azul, a fishing hamlet near Tonala, fishing boat owner Villermino Rodriguez Solis said Alvarenga and a companion had gone missing on November 18, 2012. "Here, his colleagues went out in boats to look for them. They spent four days looking for them."

[Navatech]

I too have read "Adrift"… It's THE reason I bring my own PLB along for the ride on ANY boat… I have a EPIRB on the boat (hydrostatic release with automatic activation), a PLB on the bridge and a PLB in the ditch bag… Odds are I'll never use any of them but, be prepared for the worst and you'll always be pleasantly surprised…