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Jose Ivan WorldVideos101 via YouTube

"I feel bad": Castaway arrives home after year adrift at sea

Jose Ivan said he had set sail from Mexico on Christmas Eve, 2012.

SPORTING A BUSHY beard and clutching a can of Coke, a castaway who says he survived more than a year adrift in the Pacific Ocean arrived in the Marshall Islands capital Majuro today.

A male nurse had to help the man previously identified as Jose Ivan down the gangplank of a police patrol boat after a 22-hour trip from the remote coral atoll where he washed ashore last week after apparently setting sail from Mexico on December 24, 2012.

Epic voyage

About 1,000 curious onlookers crowded the dock for a glimpse of the long-haired fisherman, who smiled and waved briefly before he was whisked away for a medical check-up at Majuro Hospital.

The castaway told US ambassador Thomas Armbruster, who was acting as an interpreter for Marshall Islands authorities, that he was originally from El Salvador but had been living in Mexico for 15 years before his epic voyage.

“He said he is a shrimp and shark fisherman,” Armbruster said Monday in Majuro minutes after talking to him. “He looked better than one would expect.”

And foreign ministry officials said he told them during a debriefing that he was a 37-year-old whose full name was Jose Salvador Albarengo.

He said he lived in Tapachula, near the Mexican border with Guatemala, and worked for a company named Camoronera Dela Costa.

Albarengo said he was on a shark-fishing expedition with a youth named Xiquel when strong winds blew them off course and they became lost.

Albarengo said the boy, described as 15- to 18-years old, died a few weeks into the ordeal because he could not eat raw bird meat.

Disorientated

image

The surviving fisherman was found disorientated and clad only in ragged underpants last Thursday, after his 7.3-metre fibreglass boat floated onto a reef at Ebon Atoll, the southernmost cluster of coral islands in the Marshalls.

Unable to speak English, he communicated to his rescuers through pictures and gestures that he had survived the 12,500 kilometre odyssey by eating turtles, birds and fish and drinking turtle blood when there was no rain.

Marshall Islands immigration chief Damien Jacklick said authorities were still gathering information and the foreign affairs department planned to contact overseas officials to arrange his repatriation.

With the help of the US ambassador, we were able to obtain information on his family members in El Salvador and the United States. We hope this information will help us track down his family.

Medics plan to give Albarengo a thorough check before he is interviewed by detectives.

He spoke briefly to a Spanish interpreter via a faltering radio link over the weekend while still at Ebon Atoll and said he was keen to return home.

“I feel bad,” he said of his physical and mental state.

I am so far away. I don’t know where I am or what happened.

- © AFP, 2014

Read: Castaway survived 16 months adrift at sea by eating turtles>

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    Mute Malcolm
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    Feb 3rd 2014, 6:44 PM

    Does everybody else think he killed and ate the other guy

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    Mute Jim
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    Feb 3rd 2014, 8:40 PM

    Mutany on the bounty

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    Mute Jamie O Sullivan
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    Feb 3rd 2014, 9:49 PM

    Mutiny

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    Mute Jim
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    Feb 3rd 2014, 10:48 PM

    Thanks pal

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    Mute Dessie
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    Feb 4th 2014, 1:37 AM

    Better for one to live than two to die!!

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    Mute Charles Greene
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    Feb 4th 2014, 3:07 AM

    Yes

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    Mute Imnotbovvered Atall
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    Feb 4th 2014, 4:56 AM

    Malcolm, OMG, my mind didn’t even go there. lol. But now that you mention it……

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    Mute Paul Corrigan
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    Feb 3rd 2014, 6:35 PM

    I spent 2 years adrift in Longford and looked the same as Jose when I was found

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    Mute Adam Murphy
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    Feb 3rd 2014, 6:21 PM

    Oh yeaaa, I’m sure not being able to eat bird meat was the reason the other guy died…

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    Mute Lloyd Christmas
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    Feb 3rd 2014, 10:35 PM

    He is now a teenage mutant ninja turtle

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    Mute TIPM (Mick Rooney)
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    Feb 3rd 2014, 6:21 PM

    I’m starting to smell a few fishy things about this man’s story.

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    Mute Jimmy James
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    Feb 3rd 2014, 7:56 PM

    This story is a week old at least -
    Breaking news isn’t the main thing here is it -

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    Mute Niall Griffin
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    Feb 3rd 2014, 7:34 PM

    Who’s gonna break the news that Hayley died?

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    Mute Bazalini
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    Feb 3rd 2014, 8:39 PM

    Wait till he hears Ferguson has retired and Moyes has wreaked the joint

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    Mute paul burch
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    Feb 3rd 2014, 6:42 PM

    I wonder if he had a “Wilson” with him

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    Mute Dungeon Master
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    Feb 3rd 2014, 6:56 PM

    I think in the radio interview he mentioned his friend “Arnotts”

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    Mute Dungeon Master
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    Feb 3rd 2014, 6:32 PM

    I’d murder a can of turtle blood right now

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    Mute Christina Conroy
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    Feb 3rd 2014, 10:16 PM

    Hide and seek champion 2014!

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    Mute Dermot O Dwyer
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    Feb 3rd 2014, 6:30 PM

    He Is one rough looking F&*ker….
    The tide wouldn’t take him out…..

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    Mute Chris Treacy
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    Feb 3rd 2014, 6:48 PM

    Shut up ye clowns if you have nothing intelligent to say

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    Mute Eamonn Boylan
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    Feb 3rd 2014, 6:27 PM

    Sounds like a very fishy story!!

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    Mute Eamonn Boylan
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    Feb 3rd 2014, 10:37 PM

    Willlllllson :)

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    Mute James Lyons
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    Feb 3rd 2014, 8:29 PM

    Willlllsssooooonnnnn!!!!

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    Mute Billy Kavanagh
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    Feb 3rd 2014, 7:13 PM

    I hope no one cannibalizes his story. I think he knows what was eating his friend though, He was! I think this guys a drifter

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    Mute Michael cunnane
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    Feb 3rd 2014, 9:37 PM

    The poor lad feels bad.Id say hes got indigestion from atein the other lad.And nottin to wash it down wit !

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    Mute eVeLyN hUgHeS
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    Feb 3rd 2014, 8:35 PM

    Now that’d be some nek nomination

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    Mute Declan Doyle
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    Feb 3rd 2014, 6:56 PM

    Hardy man.

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    Mute Alan Phillips
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    Feb 3rd 2014, 7:25 PM

    Life of Pi ?

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    Mute Bobby Ewing
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    Feb 3rd 2014, 6:24 PM

    That poor man is adrift alright, another Kevin mcgeever I’m afraid. does he not know that every object at sea is under satellite survelence weather it has a responder or not.

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    Mute Dermot Lane
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    Feb 3rd 2014, 7:12 PM

    And yet they can’t find the Russian ghost ship that was in the news last week, which is several times bigger?

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    Mute Bernadette
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    Feb 3rd 2014, 8:23 PM

    They made a film based on that ship. Its called “Rats on a Ferry” See the trailer on YouTube.

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    Mute Bobby Ewing
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    Feb 3rd 2014, 9:20 PM

    Mmmm I’m afraid it’s not lost, just nobody wants any responsibility for its salvage costs!

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    Mute divide by zero
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    Feb 3rd 2014, 9:24 PM

    Almost makes sense.
    Surveillance.
    Whether.
    Transponder.

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    Mute Dermot Lane
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    Feb 3rd 2014, 9:42 PM

    Bobby it’s lost whoever salvages it will make a million profit, according to those reports last week.

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    Mute Bobby Ewing
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    Feb 3rd 2014, 9:56 PM

    lyubov orlova cruise ship. lat 52.4827 long-164355. its now present location. source marine traffic.

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    Mute John Flood
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    Feb 3rd 2014, 9:03 PM

    Adrift since December 2012. Somone better break it to him gently if he is a Man. United fan!!

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    Mute Aaron D
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    Feb 3rd 2014, 6:28 PM

    Of course he’s lying, he’s Harry Enfield

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    Mute Tom Fennelly
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    Feb 3rd 2014, 6:38 PM

    All is not lost.

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    Mute irishcrisis
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    Feb 3rd 2014, 10:39 PM

    Seriously thou do you think he ate the other dude ? Christ like! This is mental! Hope we find out more on this…

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    Mute Michael cunnane
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    Feb 3rd 2014, 9:34 PM

    There’s a book in this .

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    Mute Jim
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    Feb 3rd 2014, 9:41 PM

    I like cake

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    Mute Iain Danger Drennan
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    Feb 4th 2014, 1:42 AM

    this will be made into a movie.
    Danny Dyer should do his part

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    Mute Steve M
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    Feb 3rd 2014, 6:41 PM

    Where is Norman?

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    Mute Montys Moonshine
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    Feb 3rd 2014, 7:12 PM

    Epic fail

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    Mute Chief
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    Feb 3rd 2014, 7:49 PM

    Wilson?

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    Mute Ryan Freeman
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    Feb 4th 2014, 2:23 AM

    Wilson!

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    Mute Alcho Holic
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    Feb 4th 2014, 1:02 AM

    Chianti and a little liver,yum,yum Hic!

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