JZ - 8-16-2006 at 10:13 AM
http://tinyurl.com/ly5qe
[Edited on 8-16-2006 by JZ]
Eleven months at sea???!!!!
frizkie - 8-16-2006 at 10:16 AM
Now that sounds INTERESTING !! I'd sure like to hear more about that but the link does not supply the story.....Can you tell us more JZ???
JZ - 8-16-2006 at 10:18 AM
Try it now.
bajabound2005 - 8-16-2006 at 10:18 AM
if that link doesn't work, try this one:
http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=1196612006
bajarich - 8-16-2006 at 10:48 AM
Now thats a real expedition! The didn't use any motors either! (See the thread about the Waverunners)
Thanks
frizkie - 8-16-2006 at 10:51 AM
That worked.
Incredible!! There's something to be said for the Power of positive thinking.
The Sculpin - 8-16-2006 at 12:09 PM
I hope they don't get screwed on the book royalties or the movie rights!
Cypress - 8-16-2006 at 12:11 PM
11 months? Eleven months? According to my limited math skills, that's close to a year drifting 'round upon the deep blue sea. Jeez! There's something
about this story that doesn't add up.
It's been a Long, Long Time !
MrBillM - 8-16-2006 at 12:23 PM
This one could be the record, but there have been numerous other cases where people survived for six months or more on the ocean, often in Life
Rafts. They, at least, had a seaworthy 30 foot boat (with no propulsion). There are big stretches of the Pacific where you could go for a long time
and never see another vessel.
Bob H - 8-16-2006 at 01:54 PM
Both of the stories are a little different in details. One says 11 months and the other says 9 months. Maybe there is an interpretation problem
here.
Sorry...
Mexray - 8-16-2006 at 02:00 PM
...It's reported that their relatives in San Blas say they were missing for only three months! I guess the story gets better with every telling!
Fishing???
Sonora Wind - 8-16-2006 at 02:11 PM
If I was gone on a three month fishing trip, my wife would surley leave me!! HUMMMM Talk later I've got to pack the boat.
Glad their safe
3 anglers rescued after months afloat, they say
BajaNews - 8-16-2006 at 03:51 PM
http://sports.espn.go.com/outdoors/fishing/news/story?id=255...
By Mark Stevenson
Associated Press ? Aug. 16, 2006
MEXICO CITY ? Three Mexican fishermen who claim they set out months ago from Mexico's western coast have been rescued near the Marshall Islands ?
5,500 miles to the west ? after surviving on rain water and raw fish.
Eugene Muller, manager of Koo's Fishing Co., said by phone Tuesday that the company's boat picked up the three on Aug. 9. Muller said the men were
recovering and would be brought back to Majuro, the islands' capital, in 10 to 14 days.
"We fished, and we ate the fish raw ? because there was no fire to cook with," survivor Jesus Vidana, 27, told Mexico's Televisa news network in a
telephone hook-up to the ship's communications system.
They once went 15 days without food but had enough drinking water because "it rained every day," he said.
He said the three read the Bible as they drifted across the Pacific.
"We never lost hope because there is a God up there," he said, sounding hoarse and sleepy. "Our feet are swollen, our arms are swollen ? but we're not
in that bad shape."
Vidana said he and the other two men set off on Oct. 28, 2005, from San Blas, a coastal town about 410 miles northwest of Mexico City, to fish for
sharks. But mechanical problems and adverse winds quickly pushed their 27-foot boat out to sea.
"It was nine months and nine days," Vidana recalled. "One of the guys on the boat has a watch that shows the months and the days."
There was no independent confirmation of the date when the men set out from San Blas; phone calls to port officials there went unanswered.
However, the government news agency Notimex interviewed relatives of the men in San Blas, who said they had only been missing for three months.
Muller said the men's boat appeared to have had engine problems.
"Their two motors had been dismantled, and it seemed they were trying to swap parts to get one working," Muller said, noting that the ship's captain
had told him "they were very skinny and they were very hungry. The first thing we did, we gave them something to eat and they chowed down."
Survivor Lucio Rendon, 27, recalled that "we didn't see any ships for months," and Vidana said they were asleep when the Koo's crew called out to
them.
"We're recovering," Rendon said, "sleeping a lot, and eating well."
Salvador Ordonez, the third survivor, said the three carried only flashlights and a compass but no radio.
Still, he said, "I knew I was going to live, that I wasn't going to die."
Fishermen survive months at sea eating birds
BajaNews - 8-16-2006 at 03:53 PM
http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/articlenews.aspx?type=oddlyE...
Aug 16, 2006
By Kieran Murray
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Three Mexican fishermen have been rescued after drifting for months and thousands of miles across the Pacific Ocean in a small
boat, an ordeal they survived by eating raw birds and fish and drinking rain water.
The shark fishermen said on Wednesday they left their home village of San Blas on Mexico's Pacific coast in November and were blown 5,000 miles (8,000
km) off course after their 25-foot (8-metre) fiberglass boat ran out of gas and they were left to the mercy of the winds and the tides.
Their families had given them up for dead, but they found a way to survive in what appeared to be one of the most impressive feats of endurance on the
high seas.
"We ate raw fish, ducks, sea gulls. We took down any bird that landed on our boat and we ate it like that, raw," Jesus Vidana, one of the three
survivors, said in a Mexican radio interview from the ship that rescued them.
The news stunned friends and relatives.
"It's truly a miracle. Everyone is very happy," said Jose Guadalupe Guerra, a town hall official in San Blas.
"Everyone found out from the television. A cousin of one of them fainted from the shock. His grandfather also got very emotional -- they'd written
them off as dead," he said.
The odyssey finally ended when Vidana and the other two men, identified as Salvador Ordonez and Lucio Rendon, were rescued a week ago by a Taiwanese
tuna fishing trawler in waters between the Marshall Islands and Kiribati.
"They were very skinny and very hungry," Eugene Muller, manager of the fishing firm that found them, said on Wednesday.
NEVER GAVE UP
The three men were sunburned but otherwise in good health. Vidana said they always believed they would be found.
"We never lost hope because we were always seeing boats. They passed us by, but we kept on seeing them. Every week or so, sometimes we'd go a month
without seeing one, but we always saw them so we never lost hope," he said.
They were lucky to be picked up in the end because they were fast asleep and only noticed the rescue boat was coming for them when they heard its
engine.
Details of the extraordinary journey were sketchy. First reports said they were lost for three months but relatives confirmed Vidana's version that
they left nine months ago.
"I lived so sad. ... Now that I know my grandson is alive, I am very happy. I just want him to come home soon," Rendon's grandmother Francisca Perez
told the Televisa news station.
"There are no words to express it. The emotion here is very strong because we thought they were dead," said Efrain Partida, a fellow fisherman in San
Blas, which was once a Spanish port and is known for its bird life, tropical jungle and voracious mosquitoes and sand flies.
Mexico is sending an official to meet the survivors in the Marshall Islands and help bring them home when the trawler that picked them up returns to
port in a couple of weeks.
Among other recorded cases of people surviving long periods stranded at sea, in 1942 a Chinese sailor named Poon Lim survived four months alone in the
South Atlantic after a German U-boat torpedoed the British merchant ship he was working on.
In 1789, British Vice Adm. William Bligh was set adrift after the famous mutiny on "The Bounty," a merchant ship he commanded. He and 18 loyal crew
members then made an impressive six-week journey to safety in Timor.
(Additional reporting by Paul Tait in Sydney and Catherine Bremer in Mexico City)
More Recent Survivals
MrBillM - 8-16-2006 at 04:22 PM
I remember years ago (early 90s ?), a middle-aged couple whose sailboat went down and they floated in their liferaft for months. They were able to
survive because they had a PUR Survivor water maker. Their mishap was covered in all of the Sailing magazines and an advertisement for PUR Survivor.
"The Life of Pi"
thebajarunner - 8-16-2006 at 05:04 PM
If you like this story, then read the book.
This book has been around a couple of years, and it is a terrific tale (fiction) but has eerie overtones to the story above.
And, it is one of the best reads you will enjoy this Summer!
another version
Oso - 8-16-2006 at 05:45 PM
Adrift in the Pacific for 9 Months
By H?ctor Tobar, LA Times Staff Writer
August 16, 2006
MEXICO CITY ? Lost at sea since October, the three fishermen from a
hamlet outside San Blas were given up for dead long ago.
After weeks of looking for their son at fishing ports up and down the
Pacific Coast of Mexico, the parents of Salvador "Chava" Ordo?ez
resigned themselves to the belief that he, his two companions and
their 30-foot fishing boat had been swallowed up by the sea, family
members said.
On Tuesday, news of a miracle came from 5,000 miles away. After more
than nine months adrift, Ordo?ez and his companions had been found
alive north of Baker Island in the central Pacific, the lonely
stretch of ocean where aviator Amelia Earhart disappeared almost 70
years ago.
Sunburned and skinny, but otherwise healthy, they were rescued Aug. 9
by the crew of the Koo's 102, a Marshall Islands fishing boat run by
a Taiwanese crew.
Trade winds and ocean currents had carried the three men from the
waters off their home state of Nayarit more than halfway to Australia.
"They were quite hungry," Eugene Muller, manager of Koo's Fishing
Co., said in a telephone interview from the Marshall Islands. "It's a
long ways from Mexico to here."
The Mexicans' fishing boat had two disabled outboard motors but was
still seaworthy, Muller said.
Interviewed Tuesday evening via shipboard radio by Mexican
television, the men said they survived by eating raw fish and
capturing seabirds.
"Sometimes our stomachs would hurt, because we would go up to 15 days
without eating," Jesus Eduardo Vida?a told the Televisa
network. "There were times when we had only one bird to share among
the three of us."
The three fishermen apparently had no radio or cellphone, relatives
said. But they carried several days' worth of water and food,
including a supply of lemons.
The three men are in their mid-20s and their youth may have played a
factor in their survival, their relatives speculated.
Aboard the Koo's 102, the fishermen told their rescuers that they had
fought off dehydration by collecting rainwater to drink.
"They were quite skinny" Muller said. "As soon as we got them on
board, the crew fed them some rice."
Ordo?ez, Vida?a and Lucio Rendon Becerra left the fishing hamlet of
El Limon, about 425 miles northwest of Mexico City, on Oct. 28, for
what was to have been two or three weeks of deep-sea fishing,
relatives said.
Vida?a told Televisa that strong winds pushed them out of their
fishing area and they became lost.
Some family members already had said a mourning novena, ritual
prayers that are meant to guide the departed on their journey from
purgatory to heaven.
On Tuesday, news of the rescue was greeted in El Limon and San Blas
as nothing less than an act of God.
"I'm trembling all over and I think I'm going to have a heart
attack," Saul Ordo?ez, 42, a cousin of two of the fishermen, said by
telephone from El Limon. "They went fishing and they never came back.
We thought they were dead."
Saul Ordo?ez and other fishermen from the hamlets around San Blas had
sailed and traveled up and down the Pacific Coast looking for traces
of the missing boat. They even searched the coast of the Islas
Marias, more than 50 miles off Nayarit.
"We were looking for some trace of them, anything, but we found
nothing," Ordonez said. Other family members visited Acapulco and
Mazatlan, and called authorities as far away as Colombia.
"No one gave us any information, no one gave us any news," Hortensia
Ordo?ez, Salvador's aunt, told a Mexico City radio station. "So we
gave them up for lost."
Unbeknown to their relatives in San Blas and El Limon, their fishing
boat was being pushed westward by the same currents and winds that
had carried Portuguese and Spanish explorers across the Pacific
centuries ago.
Those currents often play havoc with the fishermen of San Blas, many
of whom go 50 miles or more out to sea in search of shark and other
deep-sea fish. Saul Ordo?ez has another cousin who has been missing
for more than seven years.
"When you're out there, your engine is your lifeline," Saul Ordo?ez
said. "These days some of us carry cellphones so we can call back if
an engine fails."
The three fishermen remain aboard the Koo's 102, whose crew is
fishing for tuna between the Marshall Islands and Kiribati, Muller
said.
The Koo's 102 is scheduled to arrive in the port of Majuro in the
Marshall Islands in 10 to 14 days, officials said.
The ship's crew members are mostly Chinese-speaking workers, and the
Mexicans have been able to communicate very little with their
rescuers.
They wrote their names on a sheet of paper, which was faxed from the
ship to Majuro, Muller said.
Rendon told Mexican television that the tuna fishermen had spotted
their disabled vessel.
"We were born again," Rendon said of being rescued. "This has been a
miracle from God because we never lost hope."
Mexican diplomats said Tuesday that they would arrange a plane trip
home for the men once they reached port.
Remigio Rendon, 43, said his family never gave up hope that his
nephew Lucio would be found alive.
"My mother refused to pray the novena for him," Rendon said. "She
said Lucio was still alive. And she was right."
MICK - 8-16-2006 at 09:32 PM
WOW THAT'S AMAZING
bajarich - 8-17-2006 at 07:20 AM
It something to think about whenever you launch your little fishing boat. I always carry a set of oars that might get me back. I have never seen
spare oars on any fishermans panga in Mexico. If you are left only to drift with the current and don't have a radio, it could be a long day fishing.
JZ - 8-17-2006 at 07:28 AM
That's right. Going out on the water without a VHF radio, GPS, and a good anchor with the proper rode is just nuts. Cell phones are NOT a viable
substitute for a VHF radio.
Get an ACR ditch bag for your radio, GPS, flares, and other essentials. Very compact, water tight, and it floats.
Two 200 hp outboards? What kinda fishin were they doin...
JG - 8-17-2006 at 09:09 AM
Mexican fishermen found after 11 months at sea
Wednesday August 16, 07:36 AM
?
?
?
?
By Paul Tait
SYDNEY (Reuters) - Three Mexican fishermen found drifting in the Pacific Ocean could have been lost for almost a year and two others were missing and
presumed dead, the manager of a fishing company that rescued them said on Wednesday.
Early reports suggested the fishermen had been lost at sea for about three months and drifted more than 8,000 km (5,000 miles) before they were found
by a Taiwanese tuna fishing trawler in waters between the Marshall Islands and Kiribati on August 9.
ADVERTISEMENT
But Eugene Muller, manager of Koo's Fishing Co. Ltd in the Marshall Islands capital of Majuro, said it now appeared they had been at sea much longer
than that in an extraordinary story of maritime survival.
"The first report was three months, but after that we got some more word from the ship that it might have been since last September," Muller told
Reuters by telephone from Majuro.
"It's a pretty long way from where they're from. It's more than three months," he said.
The three men -- identified in media reports as Salvador Ordonez Vasques, Jesus Eduardo Vidana Lopez and Lucio Randon Bacerro -- are all from the
town of San Blas on Mexico's Pacific coast.
Muller said details of how the men survived remained sketchy because of language difficulties between the Mexican fisherman and the Taiwanese crew of
the trawler that rescued them.
He said it appeared the three men had survived on rain water, sea birds and fish they had been able to catch as they drifted in their 25-foot-long (8
metre) fibreglass boat.
"They were very skinny and very hungry," he said.
Muller said there were five men aboard the boat when it set out from San Blas.
"Two of them jumped overboard a few days into their ordeal," he said. No further details were available about the other two men, who were presumed
dead, he said.
It appeared their small fishing boat, equipped with two 200 horsepower outboard motors, had suffered engine problems soon after it left San Blas.
"It looks like they had engine problems because their motors had been dismantled and it seemed like they were trying to salvage parts from one to get
the other one working," Muller said.
The trawler which rescued the men was not expected to dock in the Marshalls for up to two weeks.
Muller said Marshall Islands government officials had contacted the Mexican Embassy in New Zealand, which handles relations between the Marshalls and
Mexico, to arrange for the repatriation of the fishermen.
The Mexican embassy in Wellington said the matter was being handled by the Mexican foreign ministry in Mexico City and gave no further details.
Bruce R Leech - 8-17-2006 at 09:22 AM
fast trolling I guess
Ill bet the boat was painted black also
Lost a sea.
Cypress - 8-17-2006 at 12:22 PM
Think Bruce has their number. Twin 200 horse-power outboards?
JESSE - 8-17-2006 at 12:58 PM
"equipped with two 200 horsepower outboard motors"
"authorities where not informed they where missing"
"there was 5 people aboard and two died"
My Tijuana instinct tells me these guys where probably not fishing at all.
Skeet/Loreto - 8-17-2006 at 01:09 PM
Sounds fishee to me.
Those are the Type of units that at one time would depart the Esturies{SP} on the West coast of Mexico in the evening Hours and head for such places
as San Sebastian{Just North of San Nicholas}, However one morning two of the boats were late in arriving and did not Heed the Heliocopters warning to
stop and one of the Boaters was machine-gunned to a state of Death. The other gave up!
There has not been many of that kind going into San Sebastain as of Late--True Pangamadness!!!????
Skeet/Loreto
Sharksbaja - 8-17-2006 at 01:59 PM
Bruce R Leech - 8-17-2006 at 03:53 PM
I bet they were happy the whole 11 months
tim40 - 8-17-2006 at 09:17 PM
some people get to go on all of the best adventure trips...time and money..never go together...
bajajudy - 8-18-2006 at 06:46 AM
Survivor: Two shipmates died
One of three fishermen rescued after a nine-month sea odyssey
Wire services
El Universal
August 18, 2006
One of three fishermen who claim they spent nine months adrift before being rescued off the Marshall Islands said their boat originally carried five
men, but two of them died and were thrown overboard, officials said Thursday.
Fisherman Jes?s Eduardo Vi dana, who was rescued along with his shipmates by an Asian fishing boat last week, told Mexico?s am bassador to New Zealand
of the two other passengers during a conversation late Wednesday, said Miguel Guti?rrez, director of Consular Affairs for Mexico?s Foreign Relations
Secretariat.
The announcement came at a Thursday morning news confer ence held by Foreign Relations Secretary Luis Ernesto Derbez, who reiterated that the govern
ment could not corroborate or discount the fishermen?s claims that they spent nine months at sea surviving on rain water, raw fish and faith, because
they were nev er officially reported as missing.
Two of the men, whose com plete identities were not avail able, died because they refused to eat the raw fish, Guti?rrez said, re laying the story
Vidana told Mexi can Ambassador to New Zealand Mar?a Ang?lica Arce. ?There was little food, and they themselves refused to try the food,? Guti?rrez
said.
One of the fishermen died in January and the other in February, Vidana said. Their bodies were thrown overboard immediately afterward, he said.
Derbez said it was also difficult to corroborate Vidana?s story of the two dead fishermen because he is the only one who has given a testimony so far.
?It?s natural for people who have been nine months on the high seas ... not to have a complete story immediately,? Derbez said.
The surviving fishermen, who are still aboard the Asian fishing boat that rescued them, are ex pected to arrive on the Marshall Islands early next
week, Guti?r rez said.
Officials will then assess their health, interview them fur ther and provide them with the necessary documents to return to Mexico. He said the date
of the men?s return home would depend on their health and other factors.
In phone interviews with the Mexican news media, Vidana said he and companions Lucio Rend?n and Salvador Ord??ez, set off on Oct. 28, 2005, from San
Blas, a Pa cific Coast town about 660 kilo meters (410 miles) northwest of Mexico City, to fish for sharks.
However, mechanical prob lems and adverse winds quickly pushed their boat out to sea. The Marshall Islands are 8,800 kilo meters away from the coast.
An employee of the captain?s office in San Blas confirmed that the men had not been reported missing. One explanation for the lack of a missing
persons? report is that the men apparently set out in their 8-meter (27-foot) boat on a short fishing expedition with little equipment ? just
flashlights and a compass ? and may not have formally advised port authorities of their departure.
The men?s relatives could not be reached for comment. Howev er, the government news agency Notimex has quoted relatives of the men as saying they had
only been missing for three months.
Mexicans lost two crewmates
BajaNews - 8-18-2006 at 10:29 AM
http://www.theage.com.au/news/world/mexicans-lost-two-crewma...
August 19, 2006
THE miraculous story of three Mexican fishermen who survived nine months adrift in the Pacific Ocean in a small boat has taken a new turn after it was
revealed there were five men on board the vessel when it began its voyage.
Joel Hernandez Garcia, an official with the Mexican foreign ministry, said there were five people on board the boat when it set off on October 28 from
the village of San Blas on Mexico's Pacific coast to fish for shark in local waters.
The boat was blown off course by a storm, and after running out of petrol, drifted for more than nine months and 8000 kilometres until the three
survivors were rescued last week by a Taiwanese tuna trawler.
"Two of (the missing fishermen) apparently died after the passage to the open sea, as they were drifting," Mr Garcia said. "The survivors have
mentioned the probable time of death of the first person as January and the second person a month later."
No mention was made of the dead fishermen during interviews with Mexican broadcasters earlier this week.
But the operator of the Taiwanese boat said he thought the men said there had been five men, media reports said.
The missing trio said they survived on raw fish, raw ducks, raw seagulls and rainwater. They caught the fish with hooks attached to the end of
electric cables from the boat's motor.
"At one point, we went for 15 days without anything to eat," one of the survivors, Jesus Vidana, 61, said.
Mr Garcia made his remarks after talking to Mr Vidana, who indicated "there was little to eat and that the other two refused to eat".
Mr Garcia said the bodies of the two dead fisherman had been thrown overboard.
The men said a Bible on board gave them hope and strengthened their faith. "We never lost hope, because we prayed day and night," Mr Vidana said.
The nine-metre-long, three-metre-wide boat was nearly sunk by huge waves that swamped the vessel, and survived several storms, the men said.
On August 9, the Taiwanese fishing crew spotted the crippled boat on their radar.
The Mexican Government said the men would be brought home as soon as possible.
They are now guests on the trawler, which is due to arrive in the Marshall Islands tomorrow.
Sailors never listed missing
BajaNews - 8-18-2006 at 10:31 AM
http://torontosun.com/News/World/2006/08/18/1763031-sun.html
August 18, 2006
By AP
MEXICO CITY -- Three Mexican fishermen who say they spent nine months adrift, surviving on rain water, raw fish and faith, were never officially
reported as missing, a top Mexican official said.
Foreign Relations Secretary Luis Ernesto Derbez told reporters that he was surprised by reports of the fishermen's Aug. 9 rescue near the Marshall
Islands, 8,800 km from Mexico's Pacific coast.
"The truth is that it really was a surprise, and it was a surprise for everybody, because there hadn't been any report that they were missing," Derbez
said. "They are physically well, obviously thin and surely hungry, but fortunately, well."
Survivor Jesus Vidana said he and companions, Lucio Rendon and Salvador Ordonez, set off on Oct. 28, 2005, from San Blas, a Pacific coast town about
660 km northwest of Mexico City, to fish for sharks, but mechanical problems and unfavourable winds quickly pushed their boat out to sea.
An employee of the port captain's office in San Blas confirmed that the men had not been reported missing.
One explanation for the lack of missing persons' reports is that the men apparently set out in their 8-metre boat on a short fishing expedition with
little equipment -- just flashlights and a compass -- and may not have formally advised port authorities of their departure.
The men's relatives could not immediately be reached for comment.
However, the government news agency Notimex has quoted relatives of the men in San Blas as saying they had been missing for only three months.
Cypress - 8-18-2006 at 03:20 PM
Missing? Found? Rescued? Jesus said? Strange! 11 months? 3 months? What were those dudes smoking?
Bruce R Leech - 8-18-2006 at 04:35 PM
how do you catch sharks with just flashlights and a compass ?
bancoduo - 8-18-2006 at 04:40 PM
When is the book coming out?
bancoduo - 8-18-2006 at 04:51 PM
Koo's Fishing Co.
"They were very skinny and very hungry," he said.
The byline being [three tweakers on a boat]duz Mr. koooooooooooo own a publishing co.?
[Edited on 8-19-2006 by bancoduo]
Rescued Mexican fishermen return home to defend their astounding tale
elgatoloco - 8-25-2006 at 07:03 PM
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/mexico/20060825-1414-mexi...
Rescued Mexican fishermen return home to defend their astounding tale
By E. Eduardo Castillo
ASSOCIATED PRESS
2:14 p.m. August 25, 2006
MEXICO CITY ? Three fishermen who say they survived nine months adrift in the Pacific Ocean returned to Mexico on Friday and vehemently denied media
speculation that they were involved in drug trafficking or resorted to cannibalism to survive.
Survivor Jesus Vidana, whose 4-month-old daughter was born while he was at sea, addressed the doubters of his tale, as all three fishermen offered to
take a lie detector test.
?I hope what happened to us doesn't happen to them,? Vidana said during a brief news conference the three gave upon arriving at the Mexico City
international airport early Friday morning. ?Personally, I'm just grateful that I'm here alive.?
Later Friday, one of the three survivors, 28-year-old Lucio Rendon, arrived in his native Pacific coast state of Nayarit, where he was welcomed on the
tarmac of the Tepic city airport by a brass band, the local Catholic bishop, state officials, and sobbing family members who embraced him in a long,
emotional group hug.
?I'm crying from both nerves and joy,? Rendon's mother, Noemi Becerra, said, tears welling up in her eyes in the moments before her son's plane
landed.
?It's like I'm going to see him for the first time. It's as if he's being born all over again.?
Rendon smiled as he was greeted by his parents, two sisters, a grandmother, aunts and uncles.
?Please let me be with my family,? he told the ever-present gaggle of Mexican and international journalists who have followed him since his return to
Mexico from the to give him some private time.
He and his relatives later traveled in a bus lent by the state governor to their hometown of San Blas, where a Mass and community meal, as well as an
intimate family gathering, were planned for the weekend.
Mexican and international news media have raised questions about the veracity of the fishermen's story, sugggesting the possibility that they were
drug traffickers.
Mexico's attorney general says there is no evidence that the fishermen were smuggling drugs, but that officials would continue to look into the case
because their hometown is considered to be in a drug trafficking zone.
Vidana, Rendon and fisherman Salvador Ordonez, say they left the Mexico port of San Blas, in Nayarit, on Oct. 28, 2005. They were rescued 285 days
later by a Taiwanese fishing boat near the Marshall Islands, 8,000 kilometers (5,000 miles) away.
The fisherman said they set out with the boat's owner and another man on a shark-fishing expedition they expected to last a few days. But their
27-foot (8.23-meter) open boat with no cabin was swept out to sea and they ran out of gas. Exposed to the elements, the three survived by eating raw
fish and birds and drinking rain water.
Ordonez said that shortly after leaving, the crew lost its fishing equipment and was ordered by the boat's owner, whom the three survivors knew only
as ?Senor Juan,? to look for it. Ordonez said he recommended against it, ?but he told me he could do what he wanted because he was the owner,? he
said. They ran out of gas during the search, he said.
Both ?Senor Juan? and another man died after they refused to eat the raw food, the fishermen said. ?Senor Juan? died in January, while the second man
died in February, the fishermen said Friday.
Over the months, prevailing currents pushed their spartan boat across the Pacific. They passed their time reading the Bible, singing and dancing.
Earlier this month, they were spotted by the fishing vessel.
During the news conference, Rendon addressed doubts about their story.
?Those who are fisherman know these things happen,? he said.
When asked if they would take a lie detector test, all three emphatically responded, ?of course.?
Asked why they appeared to be in such good physical health following their ordeal, Ordonez said their rescuers fed them a great deal of food and made
sure they rested.
?They treated us very well, with air conditioning, and they didn't let us go out into the sun,? said Ordonez, nicknamed ?El Gato,? or ?The Cat,? by
boatmates for his bird catching skills. ?They gave us a lot of food.?
With their return, the Mexican news media on Friday seemed to embrace the astonishing tale of the three plainspoken fishermen, whose tearful family
members appeared in television broadcasts from their homes in the coastal states of Nayarit and Sinaloa.
Vidana's wife was too emotional to speak as she held her sleeping baby girl in a television studio.
Asked what they planned to do next, Ordonez, from a small fishing port in the Pacific coast state of Oaxaca, replied, ?see the family for three or
four days and then get back to work.?
shari - 8-25-2006 at 08:20 PM
We've been following this story every day and it's pretty hard to believe these guys were that long drifting at sea...when they stepped off the boat
in the Marshall Islands they looked like they just came from a spa! Absolutely no scabs, no sunken cheeks, not even freckles....weird. I can't imagine
they recovered that quickly.
Mexican Fisherman Castaway story
El Camote - 3-3-2007 at 01:59 PM
Just finished reading the in-depth story of the 3 (surviving) Mexican fisherman from San Blas adrift in a panga for nine months last year. Holy
survival tale! 
It's in the Feb. 19/26 issue of the New Yorker magazine titled "The Castaways A Pacific odyssey." p. 136 Can't seem to find an online link to it but
it's well worth the read.