Ray William Johnson: True Story Podcast
Lost At Sea For 438 Days - The Salvador Alvarenga story
08 Feb 2025
This is the story of Salvador Alvarenga and how his fishing trip turned into him being lost at sea for 438 days.
Full Episode
So this couple, they live in the jungle right near the beach. And one day, they see a strange man crawling through the sand. And he's naked, and he can barely stand, and he's clutching a knife, and he's shouting something incoherently in a language they don't understand. So the guy's name is Salvador, and he works as a deep sea fisherman, catching tuna and sharks and stuff off the coast of Mexico.
It's a dangerous job, but he's into it. And one day, he decides to go on a two-day fishing trip. And his normal fishing partner can't make it, and he needs someone to go with. So this young, inexperienced guy volunteers. This guy, Pinata. So Salvador and Pinata, they get in the boat, and they head out to the Pacific. And for about two days, they fish.
And they catch about 1,100 pounds, enough fish to sell back home for about a week's worth of money. And so everything is going great.
until they're finally done fishing and they turn their boat around to go back home and then out of nowhere kabam a massive storm hits and the boat starts to fill up with water and pinata panics and he's using a bucket to get the water out of the boat as salvador tries to steer through the massive waves And finally, luckily, after a while, the storm starts to die down.
And Salvador, he can see land. They're about two hours away from the shore. And that is when, boom, the boat's engine starts sputtering and it dies. So Salvador pulls out his two-way radio and he calls his boss and he's like, help, my engine is dead. And the boss asks for his location, but their GPS has stopped working. And then, to make it worse, the storm starts building up again.
And it's getting stronger and stronger and it's tossing the boat around. Sometimes the waves are raising them up three stories high before the boat drops. And Salvador realizes that the 1,100 pounds of fish they caught is making the boat unstable. So they just dump it all out. And they just keep throwing anything not useful overboard to lighten the load. Like extra ice and extra fuel.
And then the two-way radio dies. And by this point, Salvador and Pinata have been bailing water out of the boat for hours. And the engine still won't start. And Salvador gets frustrated and he's pissed off and he just loses it. He picks up the fish killing club and he just smashes the boat's engine. And he grabs the dead GPS and the dead two-way radio and he just chucks them into the water.
Then, as night comes and the temperature drops, The two men, they have to huddle under an upside down cooler for warmth and shelter. Meanwhile, back on land, a search party is formed to go out and look for the two. But unfortunately, the storm is still very active and visibility is still very low. And after about two days of no results, the search is called off.
And five more days go by before the storm finally stops. And when it does, Salvador and Pinata, they finally get their bearings and they look around and they realize they have no idea where they are. And to make it worse, they're starving and there's nothing to eat on board and there's nothing to drink on board. So with Salvador's equipment gone, he's gotta get creative.
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