Jose Salvador Alvarenga
survives over a year
adrift at sea
I think we've all seen the news stories about this guy. Amazing at first, then incredible (literally) after a while. Officials and the media turned to this guy "claiming" to survive adrift across the Pacific Ocean. Quite frankly, I don't see any plausible reason to discredit or downplay his claim. I mean, sweet mercy, look at the location of the Marshall Islands (below), where else could he have come from? Without a doubt, he began off Mexico and ended up in the Marshall Islands. This is a guy who didn't, for example, walk out of the wilderness in northern Canada and claim to have been in the wilderness for over a year. I mean, between Mexico and the Marshall Islands, there's no place in the middle of the Pacific Ocean (or reasonably nearby) to "hang out" while the story of him gone missing builds — for more than a year — without him being recognized after his rescue. He speaks only Spanish. There's no easy way for someone to "drop him off" near the Marshall Islands so he can "conveniently" drift ashore. So he ate raw seafood; so do native people in Canada, Alaska and Greenland. If it's a hoax — which I very seriously doubt — then it's quite the elaborate and expensive and improbable hoax.
I would like to hear your opinions about this event and how well you think you would survive, especially mentally and emotionally. Officials and experts question the changes in his story about what happened, and they question his good health. So, when for over a year, your world consists of a 24ft/7m boat (because I certainly wouldn't want to jump in the water or even dangle my feet in it), and it is only under the control of the natural elements, and your only goal is staying alive, what do you think would happen to your brain and thought patterns and memory and personality? I would think such a situation would cause the average person to loose their mind.
Your comments, opinions and speculations please.