The man survived 438 days drifting across the Pacific… but the real storm began after he came home.
In 2012, fisherman José Salvador Alvarenga set out from Mexico with a young crewmate, Ezequiel Córdoba. A violent storm destroyed their engine and radio, pushing their tiny boat thousands of miles into open ocean.
They survived on raw fish, seabirds, rainwater — even turtle blood when there was nothing else. After weeks of starvation and exposure, Córdoba grew sick, stopped eating, and died.
Alvarenga said he kept his body on the boat for days, speaking to him out of loneliness, before finally committing him to the sea.
After 438 days alone with no sail, no motor, and no land in sight, Alvarenga washed ashore in the Marshall Islands — weak, sun-scarred, and miraculously alive.
But months later, a new accusation hit him harder than any wave.
Córdoba’s family sued him for $1 million, claiming he had eaten their son to stay alive.
Alvarenga denied it fiercely, calling it a publicity stunt tied to the release of his survival book 438 Days.
No evidence ever supported the cannibalism claim. No forensics. No witnesses. Nothing.
Experts say his survival was completely plausible — ocean currents matched his story, and the diet he described provided enough nutrients to stay alive.
A man who endured the ocean’s worst ended up fighting to survive his own story.
