The fisherman who washed ashore the Marshall Islands last week after allegedly spending nearly 13 months at sea said he survived his ordeal by "praying to God" and eating birds, fish, and sea turtles.

Jose Salvador Alvarenga, a Salvadorean national living in Chiapas, Mexico, said that he was shark fishing with a teenage companion on Christmas Eve in 2012 when his small fiberglass boat was blown off-course.

Alvarenga's boat then drifted west in the southern Pacific Ocean for 8,000 miles before washing up on a remote coral atoll in the Marshall Islands.  

“I didn’t know the hour, nor the day. I only knew the sun and the night,” Alvarenga said.

“I never saw land. Pure ocean. I was worried I would go crazy.”

The Mexican government has confirmed Alvarenga's identity, but many, including some government officials in the Marshall Islands, are questioning the fisherman's story since Alvarenga's physical standing appears much better than other castaways with similar situations.

Alvarenga is currently recovering in a hospital in the Marshall Islands capital of Majuro. He has said he wants to return to Mexico once he has recovered.

Read more about Alvarenga and his ordeal at The Telegraph (UK), CNN, Global Post, and BBC News.

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