Home at last for Mexican fishermen after nine months adrift
Three fishermen who claim they spent nine months adrift in the Pacific arrived back in Mexico to a hero's welcome but also tough questions about their epic journey and the fate of two companions.
Landing in Mexico City to a major media frenzy, the three denied they had resorted to cannibalism or been engaged in drug trafficking.
"Well, none of that is true. We were out shark fishing," Lucio Rendon, 27, told journalists at the airport.
Rendon, Salvador Ordonez, 37, and Jesus Vidana, 27 landed in the Mexican capital at dawn Friday, three days after being dropped off in the Marshall Islands by the Taiwanese fishing boat that rescued them.
The three say they and two others set out from Mexico's Pacific coast in late October aboard a 29-foot (8.8-meter) boat, only to be left at the mercy of the Pacific Ocean currents for nine months after their engine broke down.
"It's a miracle from God" that we survived, said Ordonez, looking tired and dazed amid a thunder of flashbulbs.
"Those who don't believe us, I hope they never have to go through what we went through," said Vidana, 27, who like the other two had never been aboard an airplane before the flight from the Marshall Islands.
They said they survived by eating raw fish and seabirds, drinking rainwater and urine. They claim their two companions died within two months because they were unable to digest the raw meat, and were buried at sea.
The three were scheduled to fly on to their homes on Mexico's west coast, where friends and relatives anxiously waited to welcome them as heroes.
They said they would continue fishing, though they indicated they had received offers for rights to their story.
But their stunning odyssey left many questions unanswered, with some Mexican media suggesting they had been involved in a drug smuggling operation, picking up packages of cocaine at sea.
Media also said the three looked surprisingly healthy considering their harrowing ordeal, and suggested they may have survived on the flesh of their companions.
Marshall Islands Police Commissioner George Lanwi also voiced doubts Wednesday about the fishermen's tale of endurance.
Lanwi expressed skepticism about why the three men and their boat were not found earlier as they drifted 8,000 kilometers (5,000 miles) westward across the Pacific along what he said was a busy trade route.
"How could they survive that distance in a boat with no canopy?" he told AFP. "It's suspicious. They look much healthier than we'd expect."
But the Mexican fishermen said they had used a blanket as protection from the sun, and that their health improved dramatically aboard the Taiwanese boat that picked them up off the Kiribati archipelago on August 9.
In an interview with AFP on Tuesday, the men said they had spent most of the time fishing and praying during as they drifted across the ocean.
"We spent most of the time reading the Bible," said Vidana. "Fishing and praying, mostly. God really helped us, because we were at sea for so long."
After their rescue, they were able to telephone their families, and Vidana discovered he was the father of a six-month-old girl born while he was adrift.
AFP
