Man Who Claims to Have Survived Months Adrift Joins Pantheon of Famous Castaways
The real Robinson Crusoe and 4 other lost-at-sea tales testify to the will to survive.
José Salvador Alvarenga has captured imaginations and raised a few skeptical eyebrows. Alvarenga landed a tiny, beat-up boat in the Marshall Islands on Thursday and claimed to have drifted across 6,700 miles (10,800 kilometers) of Pacific Ocean, eating fish and turtles while drinking rainwater during an astounding 13-month ordeal.
He said he left Costa Azul, Mexico, and was blown out to sea with a companion who later died. Eventually, his boat drifted to landfall near the midpoint between Australia and Hawaii.
Some have suggested that Alvarenga appears a bit too healthy to have survived such an ordeal. "It's hard to buy," George Lanwi, commissioner of the Marshall Islands police force, told NBC News. A CNN weather producer studied currents and
