Fine detail born out of other survivors of long sea voyages, when eating fish don't skip they "eyes".
"Another unlikely luxury are fish eyes, which are a useful source of liquid and of another vital nutrient. Maurice and Maralyn Bailey, a British couple who survived 117 days on a rubber life raft in the Pacific in 1973, did not initially understand why they sought them, Tipton said: "They found they started to crave fish eyes, which is not something one would normally do. It wasn't until after the voyage they realised these are quite rich in vitamin C, which is something you get depleted in when you're adrift, and can of course cause scurvy." [0]
I remember reading about the how the Baileys who survived 117 days in the pacific in '73. There is a lot more details in Tiptons, "Essentials of Sea Survival". [1] Another detail, was solid boat. Had Alvarenga been in a life raft, he would have been a lot more battered and bruised. The Baileys suffered from sharks regularly bumping the raft throughout their ordeal.
[0] http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/04/castaway-jose-s...
[1] http://www.amazon.co.uk/Essentials-Sea-Survival-Frank-Golden...
As a Chinese American, I wouldn't think twice about eating the eyes of a fish. They're tasty!
Sheep eyes, on the other hand, are disturbing as they balefully glare at you from your bowl of soup.
The advantage of coming from a strong, older culture. "Head to tail" is a new (old & forgotten) thing in western (I'm thinking Anglo, UK, Aus) ... something SE Asian cultures (and others) haven't forgotten.
As it took me a little while to find Tile Islet, here's the link on google maps for others' convenience:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enewetak_Atoll#/media/File:Run...
"The final cost of the cleanup project was $239 million."
Link:
http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/marshall-islands-castaway/p...
The fact that a man who didn't even plan for the trip (or have any provisions) made it out alive even though he was virtually alone for the entire trip (his partner died after 2 months) leads me to believe that Thor was mostly right, and that South Americans did indeed travel to Polynesia and beyond probably more often than we originally thought.
What an amazing story.
http://pvs.kcc.hawaii.edu/index/founder_and_teachers/nainoa_...
Interestingly, part of their motivation in reviving it was that they were offended by Heyerdahl's hypothesis, which in their view basically said "Polynesians were dumb enough to get on a raft and just let it drift." More recently DNA analysis has shown that Polynesians came from Asia, not South America.
It recounts multiple amazing tales of survival against the odds, then goes into the psychology of what's needed to survive such a situation. Finally, it lists the top 10 traits exhibited by survivors of these kinds of situations.
"shoved his arms into the water up to his shoulders . . . When a fish swam between his hands, he smashed them shut"
Seriously, this needs some mythbusters-style testing.
The next thing I knew, he had grabbed a seagull by both feet with one hand and it was flapping it's wings wildly and squawking into my terrified face.
So I'd imagine that after a few weeks at sea and actually depending on catching birds/fish by hand for survival that one could do so.
I haven't caught fish with my hands but at sea been in situations where it didn't seem impossible. And the fishermen I know in the area (I live there on a boat) are magicians.
So sure, everything needs testing but I have a bit of a frame of reference around this one and it raises no red flags for me at all. Plus it's inline with the other lost-at-sea books I've read.
Someone else in this comments section linked to an article that explains how he caught the turtles. Basically (like you mentioned) turtles would get curious about the boat and swim right up to it, so he was able to get them that way. I presume the fish and birds behaved in the same manner, so it really lowers the red flags for me.
I would still love to see a video of someone catching these things the same way the drifter did though.
I guess my point is that even slippery little animals aren't as uncatchable as one would expect, if you can take them by surprise.
What's fascinating to me is that they start out as tiny little turtles that run like hell from the beach and swim as fast as they can. Most of them get eaten in the first couple days.
raw birds had infected his liver with parasites. Alvarenga believed the parasites might rise up to his head and attack his brain
"Without bait or fish hooks, Alvarenga invented a daring strategy to catch fish. "
I am confused these statements are contradictory, did I miss something.
Can't imagine how long this took. In the middle of the ocean, most of the time you don't even see any fish at the surface. How long do you have to wait for one to swim right between your arms?
Tickling trout is a well-established (though generally highly illegal) freshwater fishing method.
Also, the movie All Is Lost comes to mind.
Available from fine retailers of books. And Amazon.com.
I've read several of these "survival at sea" stories and one thing they all have in common is the fact that they end up passing many container ships before they are rescued. Certainly some kind of automated scanning would save lives.
An idea:
Using planet.com's satelite images to find boats at drift seams like a cool use of technology.
1x1m is what they claim and if you get one image a day i recon one could use some statistical analysis and get better results.
I do recognize that it wont be easy despite that. Image all the shit that is floating around that is not a shipwreck.
