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| Jose - soon after reaching the Marshall Islands |
Surely the "news story of last week" accolade must go to Jose Salvador Alvarenga who arrived in the Marshall Islands after drifting across the Pacific Ocean for more than a year. In December 2012, he and a companion called Ezequiel set off on a short fishing trip, leaving the Mexican coast in a small fibreglass boat. A storm blew up and they found themselves being blown westwards, without the necessary facilities to turn back homewards. It is 5,000 miles from Mexico to the Marshall islands.
At first Mr Alvarenga looked like a Robinson Crusoe figure - grinning widely as he stepped onto dry land.sporting a full beard. It should have been a delightful good news tale but there's something rather odd about it all. For a man who had apparently spent a year surviving on the fish and seabirds he caught he looked surprisingly robust - not an undernourished sunburnt skeleton of a man. Later, in a TV press conference, a now clean-shaven but miserable-looking Jose struggled to communicate and questions about Ezequiel's demise were left hanging in the air.
Perhaps we will never know what really happened out there but when I look at that TV interview I see a man who appears to be traumatised - and not just by memories of his incredible voyage across the world's biggest ocean. Things don't quite add up.
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| Jose - two days later at the press conference |
YP, I too thought he looked far too healthy at first.
ReplyDeleteIt doesn't look like the same chap. I would have expected hair bleached blond, cracked lips and salt sores. He looks like a man on Prozac.
You and I should form a detective agency. Nobody could fool us.
DeleteI agree, YP. There's more to this than meets the eye.
ReplyDeleteJenny - you can also join our detective agency. You'd be our Miss Marple.
DeleteTime will tell...the truth will come out...eventually. The tale certainly does raise many questions...it will be interesting to see if we get the answers.
ReplyDeleteLee - Ever hear that Elvis track "Suspicious Minds"? That would be the name of our international detective agency. You would front our Australian branch - assuming of course that crime still happens in Australia.
DeleteStrange, very strange.
ReplyDeleteMaybe I am GB, but I can't help it.
DeleteI am trying to memorize his surname. Alvarenga, Alvarenga, Alvarenga. It is exactly the kind of question that could be asked at the pub quiz, and me and my team are going tomorrow night.
ReplyDeleteJust in case the pub quizmaster asks, the capital of Tahiti is Papeete.
DeleteIt is obvious and explains why he is confused, he was abducted by aliens.
ReplyDeleteWere the aliens sponsored by Coca Cola? (See top picture)
Delete