438 Days: An Extraordinary True Story Of Survival At Sea Download Free (EPUB, PDF)
438 Days is the miraculous account of the man who survived alone and adrift at sea longer than anyone in recorded history - as told to journalist Jonathan Franklin in dozens of exclusive interviews. On November 17, 2012, Salvador Alvarenga left the coast of Mexico for a two-day fishing trip. A vicious storm killed his engine, and the current dragged his boat out to sea. The storm picked up and blasted him west. When he washed ashore on January 29, 2014, he had arrived in the Marshall Islands, 9,000 miles away - equivalent to traveling from New York to Moscow round trip. For 14 months, Alvarenga survived constant shark attacks. He learned to catch fish with his bare hands. He built a fish net from a pair of empty plastic bottles. Taking apart the outboard motor, he fashioned a huge fishhook. Using fish vertebrae as needles, he stitched together his own clothes. He considered suicide on multiple occasions - including offering himself up to a pack of sharks. But Alvarenga never failed to invent an alternative reality. He imagined a method of survival that kept his body and mind intact long enough for the Pacific Ocean to toss him up on a remote, palm-studded island, where he was saved by a local couple living alone in their own Pacific Island paradise. Based on dozens of hours of interviews with Alvarenga and interviews with his colleagues, search and rescue officials, the medical team that saved his life, and the remote islanders who nursed him back to health, this is an epic tale of survival, an all-true version of the fictional Life of Pi. 438 Days is a study of the resilience, will, ingenuity, and determination required for one man to survive 14 months lost at sea.
Audible Audio Edition
Listening Length: 7 hours and 7 minutes
Program Type: Audiobook
Version: Unabridged
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
Audible.com Release Date: November 17, 2015
Language: English
ASIN: B017HYJHLE
Best Sellers Rank: #41 in Books > Science & Math > Nature & Ecology > Ecosystems #42 in Books > Sports & Outdoors > Hunting & Fishing > Fishing #58 in Books > Audible Audiobooks > Nonfiction > Nature
This biography was amazing. It is the type of non fiction that makes me feel good about being alive. In 438 Days: An Extraordinary True Story of Survival at Sea, we meet a man named Salvador Alvarenga and see his unbelievable will to live against all odds.Somehow, I never heard about this man. I can’t believe this happened in my lifetime and I missed the news about it.Salvador Alvarenga survived 438 days adrift in a small fishing boat.He had no food, no water, no hope for so, so long. That is longer than anyone in recorded history has survived at sea, EVER! He went into the ocean November 17, 2012 and came out January 29, 2014. His story of survival is amazing! He became a national celebrity the minute people figured out how long he was out there. His journey almost pales in comparison to his fight to get back to normal after the trauma of his ordeal.Admittedly, this book starts off with a rough index of readability. It is written by a investigative journalist who spent almost a year with Alvarenga and his family. Salvador Alvarenga is not an educated man or well spoken. He is not a grand storyteller, but this was such a grand story. What the author did for Alvarenga’s story, and the thing that made this story more amazing, is to add in professional and personal interview snippets. He cited experts in Oceanography, Research of Ocean and Earth Science, Applied Physiology, and Climatology, to name a few. He also interviewed the people at home that suspected him dead and the few that held on to hope. Between Alvarenga’s memories and the experts collaboration of what it might have been like, the author was able to make this educating and entertaining. In that order. The order of the story makes sense, I wouldn’t change a thing about this book.
On November 17, 2012 Salvador Alvarenga and an inexperienced assistant Ezequiel Cordoba set out on a twenty-five-foot fishing boat from a small Mexican village. 438 days (and approximately 6,000 miles) later… Salvador washed up… alone… a “Wild Man”… “ashore on Tile Islet, a small island that is part of the larger atoll. Ebon is the southern tip of the 1,156 islands that make up the Republic of the Marshall Islands and one of the most remote spots on earth.”I remember seeing on TV the news a few days later reporting *ever-so-briefly* the “claim” that Alvarenga was lost at sea for fourteen months. The reports on two different stations were extremely short… and they hinted that this had to be a hoax. The image of the “supposed” historic survivor… with crazy hair and unkempt beard… and what looked like a generous belly… was never brought to my attention again…UNTIL… this UNEQUIVOCALLY… mesmerizing… hypnotic… empathy… inducing book. The author does an unbelievable job… start to finish. Jonathon Franklin first indoctrinates the reader… as to not only what type of individual Alvarenga was throughout his life… which included fleeing El Salvador… in fear of his life… after a brutal bar room brawl… but explains the entire life style of the Mexican village Alvarenga subsequently lived and worked in. There are no punches pulled in describing the day after day of drinking and drugs… followed by day after day of life threatening fishing for among other things sharks. The awful weather conditions that the area was famous for… and as if to prove the reputation was well earned… such a massive storm… is what started this whole fourteen-month odyssey.
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