Alvarenga

After 11 days in a hospital, Alvarenga was deemed healthy enough to return to El Salvador. However, he was diagnosed with anemia, had trouble sleeping and developed a fear of water. In 2015, he gave a series of interviews about his ordeal to the journalist Jonathan Franklin, who published his story as the book 438 Days: An Extraordinary True Story of Survival at Sea.

José Salvador Alvarenga (Spanish: [xoˈse salβaˈðoɾ alβaˈɾeŋɡa] ; born c. 1975 ) is a Salvadoran fisherman and author who was found on 30 January 2014, aged 36 or 37, on the Marshall Islands after spending 14 months adrift in a fishing boat in the Pacific Ocean beginning on 17 November 2012. He survived mainly on a diet of raw fish, turtles, small birds, sharks and rainwater. He swam to shore at Tile Islet, a small island that is part of Ebon Atoll, on January 30. Two locals, Emi Libokmeto and Russel Laikidrik, found him naked, clutching a knife and shouting in Spanish. He was treated in a hospital in Majuro before flying to his family home in El Salvador on February 10.

Alvarenga set out from the fishing village of Costa Azul, near Pijijiapan, off the coast of Chiapas, Mexico on 17 November 2012, accompanied by a 23-year-old co-worker whom he knew only as "Ezequiel". Alvarenga, an experienced sailor and fisherman, was intent on a 30-hour shift of deep-sea fishing during which he hoped to catch sharks, marlins, and sailfish, but his usual fishing mate was unable to join him. He arranged instead to bring along the inexperienced Ezequiel Córdoba, with whom he had never worked or even spoken, and only knew by his Christian name.

Alvarenga was born in Garita Palmera, Ahuachapán, El Salvador, to José Ricardo Orellana and María Julia Alvarenga. Orellana owns a flour mill and store in the town. Alvarenga has a daughter who grew up in Garita Palmera with his parents, and several brothers who live in the United States. He left El Salvador in 2002 for Mexico, where he worked as a fisherman for four years, employed for a time by Villermino Rodríguez. At the time of his rescue, he had not been in touch with his family in eight years.

He was a composer and actor, known for Abacaxi Azul (1944), Laranja-da-China (1940) and Cousas Nossas (1931).

Alvarenga was born on May 22, 1911 in Itaúna, Minas Gerais, Brazil as Murilo Alvarenga.