How 1 Man Survived Being Lost 438 Days at Sea

This video is made possible by Curiosity Stream. watch any of their more than 2000 documentaries for free by visitingCuriositystream. com/reallifelore. The Pacific Ocean ismind-bogglingly big if you started here off the coast of northern Chile and dug a hole straight through the earth and came out on theother side you discover that you’d still be in the Pacific Ocean in the South China Sea the Pacific covers aboutOne-third of Earth’s entire surface and it’s bigger than all of the land on earth combinedExcept for a few scattered islands. That’s also mostly empty which means that if you’re ever unfortunate enough to get lost hereThere’s a very good chance that nobody will ever find you which makes the story of JoseSalvador Alvarenga and his rescue all the more fascinatingHe currently holds a world record that he achieved onAccident and that probably nobody wants to beat the longest time spent being lost at sea against all oddsHe somehow survived being lost for438 days in the Pacific so his record probably won’t be beaten anytime soonBut how did he do it the answers lie in how his misadventure began in 2012?Alvarenga was an experienced fisherman in Mexico on November 17thHe and another guy named EzekielCordoba departed together on their small fishing boat from the tiny fishing village of Costa Azul on the Mexican Pacific coastThey planned to only work for a 30 hour fishing shiftso their boat was pretty small and not at all equipped for theNightmare that would come it was basically a canoe with no roof or cabin was only seven meters long and only had onesmall motor and a refrigerator for storing their fishthey knew that a storm was coming near the area butFishermen in these parts of Mexico can earn enough money in a day to support themselves for an entire weekSo they decided to take their chances and traveled 120 kilometers away from the coast to work at 1:00 a. mThe storm hit them and was threatening to sink their boats in a panic that the two men cut their fishing lines and dropped everythingThey catch and most of their gear overboard to make themselves more maneuverable. They were 6 hours away from the coastSo they traveled through the storm and the night in a desperate attempt to get back by 7:00 a. mThere were only 24 kilometers away from the coast and could see mountains on the horizonbut thenAwful luck struck them and their motor diedWithout any paddles oars or sails the unusually strong wind began pushing their boat back out towards the oceanThey’re on board radio still thankfully workedso they frantically reported their position to their boss who responded saying that he was coming buttheir battery died and all they heard afterwards wassilenceimagine the frustration that they must have both felt in that moment as their radio died in allContact with the outside world with it and as they watched the mountains in the horizon that they were so close to slowlyDisappear as their boat that they were trapped on gradually was pushed back out into the vast abyssTheir boss did organize a search party to look for them for daysBut as their boat drifted further out into the vastness of the Pacific it got harder and harderSo they eventually were forced to give up just five days later. The winds had already blown them450 kilometers off the coast before finally settling downThey were surrounded by nothing but ocean in every direction and their boat was so smallThey knew that they probably would never be spotted from the airThey had no flare gun or any other way to signal for help other than by waving so they knew that their chances of survivalWere going to be slim they had no supplies left on boardSo they were forced to catch tiny fish or birds that landed on their boat with their bare hands for foodThey grabbed plastic bottles that they found floating nearby them and used them to collect rainwater for drinking waterBut during long periods of no rainThey were forced to mostly drink the blood of turtles that they caught with their hands or their own urineimagine going day after day month after month in a tiny box with only one other person to talk to and the only other waysto entertain yourselves being catching fish or nappingIt’s easy to understand how somebody could go insane under these conditions which according to Alvarenga story his friendDid the other guy Cordoba gave up?hope about four months into their isolation and becameSuicidal he got sick from all of the raw food that they were eating and refused to eat and eventually starve to deathAlvarenga was then all alone in the middle of nowhere with no other human in sight as far as the horizon could see a tinyspeck inside of the enormous Pacific and as you can see from this shipping map the Central Pacific where he was somewhere at is aVery quiet part of the world ships rarely come through this areaBut even still he claims to have encountered one when he was alone a cargo shipApparently passed right by him and four men on board spotted him and wavedBut they just kept moving past him and never even bothered to stopImagine how frustrated he would have been againIf you were lost for months you were all alone and you finally spotted rescueBut they just ignored you and kept on moving 11 months in and Alvarenga had traveled about8,000 kilometers across the ocean in his tiny little boatHis clothes were shredded and he only had a sweatshirt to protect himself against the Sun but finally on the 30th of January2014 he spotted coconuts bobbing around his boat and Birds landing around himHe knew that land was near and after drifting some more he discovered an island that appeared to be uninhabitedit took him half a day just adrift near the shore when heFinally jumped out of his boat and left its safety for the first time in over a yearHe swam ashore and discovered a house and when he knocked he madeContact with the first other humans since he left his village in Mexico438 days ago and after traveling nearly11,000 kilometers to put into perspective just how far away that isImagine starting in a tiny boat in Lisbon Portugal and traveling less than one mile per hourUntil you drifted across the land to her Oshima, JapanAlvarenga ended up washing ashore on the ebon atollwhich is the southern tip of the Marshall Islands andone of the most remote spotsOn the planet had he missed this spot the next likely stop for him would have been the Philippines nearly5000 more kilometers away and since it took him438 days to travel roughly 11,000 kilometers. It probably would have taken him about240 more days to hit the PhilippinesFortunately for him thoughHe somehow landed on this tiny tiny speck in the middle of the biggest ocean on earth and got himselfRescued because of it laterHe was flown back to his home in El SalvadorWhere he published a book and got himself sued by the family of his friend who died on the boat?Because they claimed that he probably ate himSo the lesson is even if you survive more than a year stranded at seaYou could still end up getting sued over something that you may or may not have actually done while you were out therebut if you’re like me and the ocean terrifies you so much that you’ll never actually go butYou want to learn more about the terrifying scale and the weird creatures that live thereAnyway, you can learn more from the comfort of your phone or PC in your own home by checking out Curiosity stream nextCuriosity stream is the first streaming service that exclusively streams documentaries and educational videos,So if you like watching poorly made educational videos on this channelYou’ll loveprofessionally made ones over there that I love like the deep ocean series narrated by David Attenborough or the destination Mars series chroniclingHow humans will move to Mars. Curiosity stream was created by the founders of the Discovery Channel in it’s available worldwide on the web Android iOS and tons of otherPlatforms they have documentaries and content spanning science, nature, history, technology, society, and lifestylesSo basically everything that I make videos about and loveUnlimited access to watch all of their videos begins at $2. 99 per monthbut you can watch everything on curiosity stream for free when you visit the link in the description atCuriosity stream comm slash real life lore and by using the code real life lure during the signup processSo, please make sure to go ahead and watch their stuff next and as always thank you for watching