On Saturday, we posted about a man who drifted ashore in a 22-24′ fiberglass boat on Ebon Atoll in the Marshall Islands, claiming that he had spent the last 13 months lost at sea. He claims that his boat was blown offshore in a storm off Mexico in December 2012.  He said that he set off from the fishing village of Costa Azul on the coast of the Mexican state of Chiapas on a one-day fishing trip with a 15-year-old, whom he knew only as Ezekiel . The teenager is said to have died after one month. The man had no identification and has since been identified as José Salvador Alvarenga. He said that he survived by eating birds, sharks, turtles, fish and barnacles.  If his story is true, Alvarenga drifted more than 6,000 across the open Pacific before washing up on the tiny atoll in the Marshalls.

Many, however, have questioned his story. Most long term castaways arrive gaunt, suffering from dehydration and malnutrition.  Alvarenga, in constrast, appears to be in relatively good health and remarkably well nourished.

“It’s hard for me to imagine someone surviving 13 months at sea,” the US Ambassador in Majuro, Tom Armbruster, told the Associated Press. “But it is also hard to imagine how someone might arrive on Ebon out of the blue.”

The acting secretary of foreign affairs for the Marshall Islands, Gee Bing also had doubts, if only based on how well fed the Alvarenga appears to be. As quoted by the Mirror, Mr Bing said: “I’m not sure if I believe his story. When we saw him, he was not really thin compared to other survivors in the past.

Nevertheless, so far, Alvarenga’s story has checked out, more or less.  The Guardian reports “that a boat manned by two fisherman was reported missing from Costa Azul two days after it set out on 17 November 2012. The report was lodged by the boat’s owner, a member of the Camaroneros de la Costa co-operative, which Alvarenga has mentioned in an interview.

The official report of the event names the two missing fishermen as Cirilo Vargas and Ezequiel Córdova. Both are said to be aged 38, which jars with Alvarenga’s description of his companion as a teenager, although Mexican official reports commonly contain mistakes. While Alvarenga’s name is not mentioned in the report he has given his age as 37.

[Chiapas rescue services official Jaime] Marroquín said the boat’s owner indicated that Vargas was from El Salvador and there were no family members following the progress of the search effort, while Ezequiel’s father had always been at the airstrip during the operation.

Local fishermen from Costa Azul have told Associated Press that Alvarenga lived and worked in the area for years and was lost at sea in mid-November. They said they only knew him as La Chancha, a nickname presumably derived from a slang word for pig, suggesting he was habitually corpulent. From the Marshall Islands Alvarenga has said that while he had been based in Mexico for some 15 years, he was originally from a coastal town in El Salvador called Garita Palmera, near the border with Guatemala.”

Photos of the sea-battered boat in which Alvarenga drifted ashore, show the co-operative name, Camaroneros de la Costa, on the bow of the open skiff.

As noted by the Guardian: “But if Alvarenga’s survival surprises many, few are positing theories to explain how else he might have crossed 6,200 miles of open ocean to arrive on the Marshall Islands in a boat that is, at least, very similar to the one it appears he set out in back in 2012.”