Is this proof that castaway spent 14 months adrift at sea? Picture emerges of 37-year-old fisherman BEFORE he claims to have left on shark hunting trip

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Jose Salvador Albaniaga in a picture taken before he left on his 'fateful trip'

Pictures have emerged of the 'castaway' fisherman who claims to have spent 14 months adrift at sea, taken before he disappeared on a shark hunting trip.
An image showing a fresh faced Jose Salvador Alvarenga, beaming at the camera and looking remarkably more healthy than the bedraggled figure he cuts now, came to light last night. 
Alvarenga insists that he owed his survival in the Pacific to his basic instincts to feed himself and drink whatever liquids he could find, as long as it wasn’t sea water.
He told of scooping tiny fish from the side of his boat, grabbing seagulls to eat raw, and drinking the blood of turtles and his own urine when rain water wasn’t available.
By all accounts, it was an astonishing story of survival on the world’s biggest ocean, drawing comparisons with the Tom Hanks movie Cast Away.
But last night questions began to emerge about his story, sparked not least by his plump appearance.
Then there was the matter of whether his 24ft fishing boat, with its broken-down motor, could have covered the 8,000 miles from Mexico, where he set out, to the Marshall Islands in the 14 months he said he was drifting.
He said he could not remember the name of the place in Mexico where he began his fishing trip on December 21, 2012, nor the name of his home village or his family’s phone number.

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Alive! The first picture of Jose Salvador Alvarenga, still with his tangled hair and scraggy beard, as he arrives in Marujo, in the Marshall Islands after 14 months adrift at sea. He looked plumper than expected - but doctors say his body could be swollen from the conditions he endured

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Desperate: Jose had drifted in his 24ft boat for 14 months across 8,000 miles of treacherous seas, finally dragging himself ashore, his skin scorched by the unforgiving sun, his shorts in tatters decayed by the sea salt

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I made it: Jose gives the thumbs up for MailOnline from his hospital bed. He is looking forward to calling his family, but says he has forgotten his telephone number and what his hometown is called

Neither could he provide officials with contact details of any of his three brothers he says live in the US.
Officials in the Marshall Islands – a cluster of atolls and islands north-east of Australia – said that until they could hear Spanish-speaking Alvarenga’s full account they would remain sceptical.

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His tale has drawn comparisons with the film 2000 Cast Away, with Tom Hanks

Gee Bing, the acting secretary of foreign affairs, admitted to having doubts after meeting him yesterday. ‘It does sound like an incredible story and I’m not sure if I believe his story,’ he said.
‘When we saw him, he was not really thin compared to other survivors in the past. I may have some doubts. Once we start communicating with where he’s from, we’ll be able to find out more.’
Mr Bing said Alvarenga had no identification on him – which would be expected for a man who ended up wearing only tattered shorts.
Another minister, Tony de Brum, said: ‘He is not fully coherent.’
And an interpreter who helped interview Alvarenga wrote in a report: ‘He is hungry, swollen, in pain, extremely loopy and wants a haircut.’
As part of attempts to confirm his identity so searches could be made to trace his wife and ten-year-old daughter, who he said lived in El Salvador, a detective went to the hospital where he was resting yesterday to take his fingerprints.
But while some officials had questions about his story, Alvarenga’s fishing boat, according to villagers on Ebon atoll where he had come ashore, bore all the scuffed signs of a vessel that had been at sea for a long time.

And there are explanations for his apparent well-fed appearance. Medical officials said he might be suffering from edema, a swelling under the skin caused by fluid retention which in turn is the result of too much sun and salt.
According to Alvarenga’s account, he had been living in Mexico for more than a decade, working as a shark fisherman.

 

More...

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Skeptical: His spotty memory does not help investigators who are looking to patch the story together

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Disoriented: Doctors said that his psychological battle will be harder than his physical one

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Hope: Jose said that thoughts of his family kept him alive. He said: 'I know they would have been worried about me, thinking that I was dead. Yes, I know I am so lucky to be here, alive'

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Lost soul: Jose revealed that his companion died after just four weeks. He was only aged between 15 and 18

Ezekiel, he said, died after four weeks of drifting because he could not keep the raw bird meat and fish down and shied away from drinking his own urine. When he died, said the fishermen, he lowered his body over the side. ‘I am sad for him,’ he said.
Then began weeks and months of drifting and battling to survive. He thought of taking his life as depression set in, ‘but I couldn’t do that. I prayed instead. I believed God would protect me – but what God gave me was not easy.
‘I always fished off the coast of Mexico and I didn’t know what was out there in the big sea, but that is where I was taken to by God. Every day was the same, just the sea, the sea. I saw nothing more. The sea and my boat.’
How had he kept his sanity? ‘When you need to eat, when you need to drink, you keep your mind alive. I thought of my wife and daughter all the time and knew they were missing me.’
He eventually ran on to a reef at Ebon atoll. Locals fed him and gave him water, then he was taken the 250 miles to the administrative district of Majuro where yesterday he began to tell his story.

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