But Alvarenga never failed to invent an alternative reality. He considered suicide on multiple occasions-including offering himself up to a pack of sharks. Using fish vertebrae as needles, he stitched together his own clothes. Taking apart the outboard motor, he fashioned a huge fishhook. He built a fish net from a pair of empty plastic bottles. He learned to catch fish with his bare hands. When he washed ashore on January 29, 2014, he had arrived in the Marshall Islands, 9,000 miles away-equivalent to traveling from New York to Moscow round trip.įor fourteen months, Alvarenga survived constant shark attacks. The storm picked up and blasted him west. A vicious storm killed his engine and the current dragged his boat out to sea. On November 17, 2012, Salvador Alvarenga left the coast of Mexico for a two-day fishing trip. 438 Days is the miraculous account of the man who survived alone and adrift at sea longer than anyone in recorded history-as told to journalist Jonathan Franklin in dozens of exclusive interviews.
