It’s been a year since a castaway fisherman washed up on a remote Pacific atoll with a mind-boggling tale of survival at sea, but it hasn’t been all smooth sailing.
Jose Alvarenga is being sued by his former attorney, is at odds with the family of a companion who perished during the voyage, and relies on handouts from family in the United States.
“Jose has no money,” his brother-in-law, Jorge Bonilla, said this week as the anniversary approached. “As a family, we try to help him by sending money for food and medicine.”
Still, the man who spent 13 months in a 24-foot boat, living on raw fish, rainwater and his own urine, “is doing so much better compared to a year ago,” Bonilla said.
Alavarenga, 38, has been reunited with family in El Salvador, has partially recovered from his ordeal and is collaborating on a book. He even wants to go fishing again.
“I am so happy to see him doing so well,” the brother-in-law said.
Alvarenga left El Salvador to make a living hunting shark in Mexico and had not seen his family in over a decade when he was swept out to sea in a storm in November 2012.
“As a family, we assumed he was dead,” Bonilla said. “We learned he was alive on the news. It was unbelievable.”
After his rescue, Alvarenga told officials that his fishing mate, Ezequiel Cordoba, 24, died of hunger and thirst within several weeks because he could not stomach the uncooked fish and birds they caught with their hands.
“I was going to commit suicide,” Alvarenga later said. “I wanted to kill myself, but no. I asked God that he was going to save me.”
On Jan. 30, 2014, he came ashore on Marshall Islands, about 5,500 miles from where he set off. He was shaggy-haired, dehydrated and confused.
The stunned islanders nursed him back to health and began piecing together his story tracked down his relatives in the U.S. and helped connect him by phone.
Within two weeks, he was flown to his Salvadoran hometown of Garita Palerma, where his parents readied his childhood bedroom for his arrival.
“It’s like my son was born again,” said his mother, Maria Julia Alvarenga.
In March, Alvarenga was on the move again, this time making a trip to Mexico to see Cordoba’s family and personally tell them the story of their son’s death.
