Man survives 14 months adrift in the Pacific Ocean
A man who has been lost at sea for 14 months has finally been found safe and well.
Jose Salvador Alvarenga, from Mexico, was found last week dressed only in his underpants near the Ebot Atoll on the Marshall Islands in the North Pacific, 620 miles north of the Solomon Islands.
Pictures of Jose after his rescue show him looking bearded and unkempt, much like Tom Hanks from the movie Cast Away.
According to the Mirror, he said: "I cannot remember much about my journey. It has all gone into one thought - the sea, the sea.
"I'm alive, it is so good. I thank God and I thank the birds I caught to eat. I caught fish and at times I drank my own urine to have liquid."
Fisherman Jose left Mexico for El Savador on 21 December 2012 to go on a one-day trip to catch sharks with a teenage fellow fisherman, called Ezekiel.
The motor on the 24ft boat stopped working and they drifted into the Pacific Ocean. Ezekiel died four months after they got lost, reportedly after being unable to keep down raw food.
According to the Daily Telegraph, Jose contemplated suicide for days after he lost his shipmate, but he said he couldn't do it.
He survived by catching turtles, birds, fish and small sharks with his own bare hands, and often drank his own urine.
Jose reportedly has a wife and a 10-year-old daughter in El Salvador. Marshall Islands immigration chief Damien Jacklick said they were still gathering information, but that they were hopeful of tracking down his family.
Jose told the Daily Mail: "I thought about them all the time. I think that by now they think that I am dead. So I want to go home and show them that I am alive. I thank God that I am here."
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