Story of Sea Survivor Highlights Primitive Fishing Conditions in Mexico Marcos Aleman - Associated Press
go to original February 6, 2014

Fishermen untangle a fishnet in the hometown of sea survivor Jose Salvador Alvarenga, Garita Palmera, El Salvador, Tuesday, Feb. 4, 2014. (AP/Esteban Felix)

GARITA PALMERA, El Salvador — The saga of a fisherman who says he survived at least 13 months at sea in an open boat and made it across the Pacific Ocean to the Marshall Islands highlights the perilous and primitive fishing equipment and practices still used in Mexico, where he set out from, and in his native El Salvador.

Fishermen typically take to the sea in 27-foot open boats with no cover, no life jackets, primitive communications gear, with only a cloth wrapped around their heads for protection from the sun.

Jose Salvador Alvarenga says he spent at least 13 months drifting across 6,500 miles (10,500 kilometers) of open ocean before arriving in the Marshall Islands, the most striking such saga in recent years.

Alvarenga has told the news media he initially had a radio and a GPS locator, but both soon malfunctioned. For many fishermen, the only thing that stands between them and death on the high sea is an aging outboard motor, a wooden oar, a machete, a few plastic jugs of water — and their faith.

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