Fishermen Survive Nine Months at Sea

Every few years a story comes out about some Mexican fishermen getting rescued after a few months in the water. This is the longest duration I've ever heard of for an event like this. Yikes!

http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=1196612006

One of the articles mentioned that two of the men left the boat and just swam away two days into the ordeal. That is very common. I know of one case where a survivor in a raft in the Gulf of Alaska cracked up and left the raft on the first night. The rest were picked up the next morning, less than 24 hours after their boat sank.

I suppose it would be prudent to try to make sure that the missing two men weren't eaten by the others...

Sub_Umbra said:

I suppose it would be prudent to try to make sure that the missing two men weren't eaten by the others...

Click to expand...

Excuse me Juan, but that toothpick looks strangely like a bone........

Cliff

Interestingly, some family members say they've ONLY been lost for 3 months.

Either way, it's interesting reading.

Bill

I don't know. I read a few more articles with later datelines and they seem to be sticking to the nine month story, repeating that it started 28 October. One article noted that the first man died in January and the other in early February. They drifted over 5,000 miles to near the Marshall Islands. A couple years ago a Honduran fishing crew drifted almost to Hawaii in three months.

I think that the Taiwanese trawler that picked them up had a hard time talking to them. One official commented that after an ordeal like that in a small boat those involved might be unable to tell their story.

I guess that's why I find it so facinating. It's just so weird. One minute you're in the twenty-first century and then you're off on some odyssey.

As bwaites noted, however, even three months is a really long time. Geeze.