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 News from Around Banderas Bay | August 2006 
San Blas Fishermen Back Home After Months Lost in Pacific
 Gunther Hamm - Reuters
| | Mexican fishermen Lucio Rendon (L) and Salvador Ordonez wave after arriving for a news conference at Mexico City's international airport August 25, 2006. (Henry Romero/Reuters) |
Three men who spent months lost and drifting across the Pacific Ocean in a flimsy fishing boat arrived home on Friday in Mexico where they have become unassuming national heroes.
The three, looking slightly bewildered, faced a barrage of questions from over 100 noisy journalists after they touched down in Mexico City on a commercial flight from Honolulu via Los Angeles.
The men's 25-foot (8-meter) fiberglass boat ran into trouble off Mexico's Pacific coast last November and drifted more than 5,000 miles before being picked up two weeks ago by a Taiwanese tuna trawler near the Marshall Islands.
The three survived by eating raw fish and sea birds and drinking rain water in an odyssey that was one of the longest recorded cases of survival at sea while adrift.
"It made us appreciate our friends and food," survivor Lucio Rendon told a news conference. He was due to fly later in the day to his home port of San Blas where a welcome party awaited.
The ordeal has captivated Mexico but questions have arisen in recent days over why they went to sea in the first place and over two other men who died on board.
A government spokesman this week said the men were to be investigated for possible links to drug trafficking but Attorney General Daniel Cabeza de Vaca later said there was no immediate evidence they were smugglers.
The fishermen denied smuggling drugs, and shouted that they were willing to a lie-detector test.
Taciturn men from poor backgrounds, the survivors have charmed Mexico with their tenacity on the voyage and reluctance to play the role of heroes on their return.
Asked in a television interview if they ever drank their own urine, Rendon shied away from answering.
"My friend's ashamed to say it, but we did," said survivor Salvador Ordonez.
On some days, the men lay still for hours to avoid drawing the attention of inquisitive sharks which circled and thumped their tails against the boat.
At night, birds came to rest on the bows of the boat and they would tuck their heads under the wings to sleep. Ordonez, the smallest of the three, became an expert at pouncing to catch them for food.
"My friend here is a cat," said survivor Jesus Vidana.
Home at Last for Local Fishermen after Nine Months Adrift
AFP
Three fishermen rescued after a harrowing nine-month journey adrift in the Pacific returned to Mexico City, where they were peppered with questions about the deaths of two shipmates.
In their hometowns, their families roasted goats and prepared Roman Catholic mass, but first the trio fielded questions about rumors they were trafficking drugs or had survived by eating the flesh of their dead shipmates.
Salvador Ordonez, Jesus Vidana Lopez and Lucio Rendon flew in from Los Angeles, one of two stops they made on their way home from the Marshall Islands in the Pacific, where they set foot on dry land on Tuesday.
"It's a miracle from God" that we survived, said a grateful Ordonez, wearing fresh clothing.
But while the three men looked forward to a hometown heroes' welcome, they were dogged by questions about whether they were drug dealers, or whether they survived their ordeal by cannibalism.
"Well, none of that is true. We were out shark fishing, and it's not the first time we got delayed," Rendon told jostling reporters and photographers snapping their pictures at the airport.
"If anyone thinks we were involved in other things, that's their business. But none of that is true."
"Those who don't believe us, I hope they never have to go through what we went through," Vidana said. "The only thing I know is that I thank God that I'm here right now."
They offered to submit to a lie detector test.
The men were received by federal officials at the airport.
After a layover of a few hours, they were scheduled to take another flight home to their families around midday.
The fishermen faced swirling doubts and rumors concerning the fate of the two companions who set with them nine months ago but did not return.
Vidana, 27, Ordonez, 37, Rendon, 27, and their two companions left the Mexican port of San Blas on October 28 of last year on a shark-fishing expedition aboard a 29-foot (8.8-meter) boat with twin outboard motors.
But they ran out of fuel they drifted 8,000 kilometers (5,000 miles) westward across the Pacific.
They survived by eating raw fish and sea birds, drinking urine at times and collecting rainwater, they said, adding that their companions were unable to digest the raw meat.
"They watched us eating -- ducks, birds, in pieces, raw -- and looked away," Salvador said.
"Juan told me, 'don't eat that, a ship will soon come by'."
"Well, I'm hungry, I told him. And here are the results: here I am, looking at you," Salvador told reporters.
The others died within the first two months at sea, said the survivors, who tossed the bodies into the Pacific.
However, questions have been raised as to whether the trio resorted to cannibalism.
Marshall Islands Police Commissioner George Lanwi voiced doubts Wednesday about the fishermens' tale of endurance.
"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."
Lanwi expressed skepticism about why the three men and their boat were not found earlier.
"There is a lot of ship traffic (across that area of the Pacific)," Lanwi said.
The three men were described as "skin and bones" when they were picked up by a Taiwanese-owned fishing boat off the Kiribati archipelago on August 9.
In an interview with AFP on Tuesday, the men passed time keeping body and soul together.
"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 had become the father of a six-month-old girl born while he was adrift.
A spokesman for Mexican President Vicente Fox said earlier in the week that an inquiry would be launched into the fate of the two dead men.
In any case, the three men said, they had heard offers to sell their incredible story. |
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