5 Mysterious People Who Were Abandoned at the Ends of the World

It was a sunny morning on January 30, 2014, when two islanders of Ebon Atoll stumbled upon a sight they would never forget. A man, naked and clutching a knife, appeared out of the ocean like a phantom from a bygone era. His wild hair and beard framed a face etched with exhaustion and relief. He spoke no English, only Spanish—a language foreign to the locals—but his eyes conveyed a simple truth: he had survived the impossible. This was José Salvador Alvarenga, a man who had just emerged from one of the most harrowing tales of survival ever recorded. Alvarenga’s journey began over 14 months earlier, on November 17, 2012, off the coast of Chiapas, Mexico. An experienced fisherman, Alvarenga was no stranger to the sea’s temperament. That day, however, he and his novice companion, 23-year-old Ezequiel Córdoba, faced a storm that would change their lives forever. The small fiberglass boat they sailed—a mere 25 feet in length—was no match for the violent tempest that stripped them of p