He could barely speak and was unable to walk. As gale force winds and ten-foot waves pummeled their small, open boat from all sides and nearly capsized them, captain Salvador Alvarenga and his crewmate cut away a two-mile-long fishing line and began a desperate dash through crashing waves as they sought the safety of port.įourteen months later, on January 30, 2014, Alvarenga, now a hairy, wild-bearded and half-mad castaway, washed ashore on a nearly deserted island on the far side of the Pacific. That night, a violent storm ambushed them as they were fishing eighty miles offshore. On November 17, 2012, two men left the coast of Mexico for a weekend fishing trip in the open Pacific. Crawling ashore, he was saved by a local couple living in their own private castaway paradise.īased on dozens of hours of interviews with Alvarenga and his colleagues, search and rescue officials, the medical team that saved his life and the remote islanders who nursed him back to normality, 438 Days by Jonathan Franklin is an epic tale of survival and one man's incredible story of beating the ultimate odds.Declared “the best survival book in a decade” by Outside Magazine, 438 Days is the true story of the man who survived fourteen months in a small boat drifting seven thousand miles across the Pacific Ocean. But Alvarenga developed a method of survival that kept his body and mind intact long enough for the Pacific Ocean to spit him up onto a remote palm-studded island. He considered suicide on multiple occasions – including offering himself up to a pack of circling sharks. Not one stopped for the stranded fisherman.

Three dozen cruise ships and container vessels passed nearby. When he was washed ashore on January 30th, 2014, he had drifted over 9,000 miles. Alvarenga would not touch solid ground again for fourteen months. The storm picked up and carried him West, deeper into the heart of the Pacific Ocean. A vicious storm killed his engine and the current dragged his boat out to sea. On 17th November, 2012, Salvador Alvarenga left the coast of Mexico for a two-day fishing trip.

The incredible true survival story of one man's record-breaking fourteen months lost at sea.

Jonathan franklin 438 days