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 News from Around Banderas Bay | August 2006 
San Blas Fishermen Found After 11 Months at Sea
 Paul Tait - Reuters
| | 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 meter) fibreglass boat. |
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.
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 meter) 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.
San Blas Fishermen Drift 8,000 km Across Pacific
Sapa-AFP
San Blas, Mexico - Three Mexican fishermen who drifted more than 8,000 km across the Pacific have been rescued near the Marshall Islands after at least three months at sea, an official said on Tuesday.
The fishermen were picked up on August 9 by a Taiwanese fishing boat belonging to Koo's Fishing Company, said Eugene Muller, the company's manager based in the Marshall Islands capital of Majuro.
"They were skinny and hungry when they were picked up last week but otherwise healthy," said Muller. He added that they survived by catching seabirds and drinking rainwater.
Details of the fishermen's ordeal were sketchy because of communication problems between the Chinese-speaking fishing boat crew and the Mexicans, he said.
Salvador Ordonez Vasques, Jesus Eduardo Vidana Lopez and Lucio Randon Bacerra from the Pacific coastal town of San Blas in central Mexico had been adrift for at least three months, according to their rescuers.
They were found in seas between the Marshall Islands and Kiribati in a fishing boat with two disabled outboard motors.
The Taiwanese fishing vessel is expected to return to Majuro to offload its catch of tuna and the Mexican fishermen in about two weeks.
Muller said the same fishing boat had picked up two drifting fishermen from Kiribati in March after they had been lost at sea for more than two months.
Muller has contacted the Marshall Islands government to ask the Mexican embassy in New Zealand, which handles relations with the Marshall Islands, to assist with getting the three men home.
3 Mexican Fishermen Rescued in Pacific
Mark Stevenson - Associated Press
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." |
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