To fill the icebox, these fishermen now commute 50 miles, 75 miles and even 100 miles off the Chiapas coast.

José Salvador Alvarenga - Wikipedia

The bottleneck doubles or triples the wind speed—meaning that a fresh 20 mph wind in the Caribbean Sea comes out as a 60 mph blast that scientists describe as “a wind jet. You’ve got built-in resilience, so you can bounce back when you get knocked [down] by a survival situation. Another unexpected and appreciated surprise for me was that Franklin did not end the story with the rescue, as most authors do. Visitors to this tough-guy neighborhood are immediately confronted with stares and a few basic questions. Like the migrating birds, Alvarenga was attracted to the protected lagoon and its unending supply of easy-to-catch fish.Since his arrival in the fishing village of Costa Azul four years prior, optimistic Alvarenga managed a unique work-life balance where “four-day drinking binges might be followed by ten days of non-stop fishing. He knew it was thousands of dollars’ worth of line and hooks that would float away, with hundreds of dollars’ worth of catch still hooked, but the storm was turning ugly. They opened their mouths to the falling rain, stripped off their clothes and showered in a glorious deluge of fresh water.

438 Days by Jonathan Franklin | Waterstones 438 Days by Jonathan Franklin | Waterstones

reminded me of both Yann Martel’s Life Of Pi and William Golding’s Pincher Martin, yet tells a tale that is nothing if not astoundingly, engrossingly singular. Sharkers had their own slang, private jokes and deep scars or missing fingers that chronicled the day-to-day brutalities of fishing in the deep sea from tiny boats. He considered suicide on multiple occasions – including offering himself up to a pack of circling sharks. While vicious storms roared offshore, sometimes lasting for weeks, the mangrove jungles absorbed and sheltered this small community. This power game can be played well or poorly, and in these 48 laws culled from the history and wisdom of the world’s greatest power players are the rules that must be followed to win.In El Salvador, he’d learned how to catch a fish with no hooks or lines by sticking his bare hands in the water. Few indeed are those that tell of near-miraculous survival, fed by human courage, faith, strength and intelligence. He was very innovative in his thinking and for the most part was able to maintain an optimistic outlook throughout his ordeal. Though they had caught nearly 500 kilograms (1,100lb) of fresh fish, the pair were forced to dump it overboard to make the boat maneuverable in the bad weather. He found a way to capture raw fish, turtles, and birds, accumulate fresh rainwater, and endure life in a twenty-three-foot boat with no motor while shielding himself from the sun by curling up in an ice box!

438 Days | Book by Jonathan Franklin | Official Publisher

I’m so happy that I got the opportunity to read his story and learn more about the man we heard about in the news. I’m a 30-something graphic designer, MLIS, singer, book lover, avid world traveler, cat whisperer, whale watcher, and art enthusiast. Salvador Alvarenga, a 36-year-old fisherman from El Salvador, had left the coast of Mexico in a small boat with a young crewmate 14 months earlier.

Quick with a smile and a helping hand, the round-faced, light-skinned Alvarenga arrived without a visa or working papers, so he pretended to be Mexican. The man who once reveled in his life as a member of “Los Tiburoneros” now can’t bear to enter the ocean. This man’s deep faith and boundless imagination, ultimate acceptance and peacefulness carried him through a mind-blowing journey that most people could not survive. Vessels have no option but to turn downwind and brace themselves for a long and frightening ride south and out to sea for 200 to 300 miles, at which point the effects of the Tehuantepec winds begin to fade. But a debate erupted online and in newsrooms around the world: was this the most remarkable survivor since Ernest Shackleton, or the biggest fraud since the Hitler diaries?