Carl’s Reviews > 438 Days: An Extraordinary True Story of Survival at Sea > Status Update

Chapter 15: Found but lost & Chapter 16: Cockroaches
Confusion, lots of questions, trouble answering, identification questions. Is he a fake? Twitter fame. Reporters all over him. (cockroaches) He avoids camera, lending to his credibility. Confirmation

Chapter 14: Who is this wild man
Discovered by Emi and Russel Laikidrik. Russel is wary, but Emi senses A. needs help.
Food. A. eats everything he can. Pancake dish. Shown himself in a mirror, Alveranga throws it down in disgust and breaks it--only tension between the Laikidriks and Alveranga. Police come to take him to a larger island for questioning and care. Alveranga fears he's being arrested. He's ter

Chapter 13: Rooster
Alveranga finally drifts to land in the Marshall Islands. He shows incredible patience, staying with his boat until he is nearly ashore. He is fearful he will be eaten by cannibals. He thinks that he will need to get a job to earn money to get back home. Rain. Exhaustion.

Ch. 11 & 12 Boat escapes its circular flow (doldrums) and heads west--great--but his food source dries up again. Rain stops. Must eat his pet bird . . . eats fingernails . . . barnacles from boat . .. another close call with large ship that just sails by, not seeing . . . physical failure.

Ch. 10 Road to Nowhere; soccer games played by birds; scratched his name on metal bands of birds; one bird as pet--"I would spend hours speaking to a person and would talk with him for hours.
Resourcefulness: Turtle shell as sombrero; talks to himself of beautiful women; pretend long walks or drives or bike rides. "I could induce my mind that I was doing something. Not just sitting there, thinking about dying

Whale Shark leaves, baby takes it's place.; rowdy, smashes boat. 3mph drift is faster! Moonless nights hardest, can't judge the next wave; 90 in the day; 85 at night; turtle blood his greatest source of nutrients and energy. Ch. 10 Road to Nowhere; soccer games played by birds; scratched his name on metal bands of birds; one bird as pet--"I would spend hours speaking to a person and would talk with him for hours.

Styrofoam's whiteness lures more birds to his boat and to his stomach. Swimming strategy to avoid sharks: when the smaller fish are relaxed, he is relaxed. When they panicked, he got back on board.
Ch. 9 Encounters with a Whale--huge creature, several times longer than his boat; eye as large as A.'s head; whale shark--30,000 pounds; talks to the gentle giant; carries whole ecosystem with him.

A Fight for Life: Cordoba gives up. Asks A. not to eat him when he dies. After he dies, Alvarenga talks to him for a while. Finally Cordoba, essentially a mummy, is gently buried at sea. Depression for A. Ch. 8 Swimming with Sharks: A. hones his hunting skills; flock of birds on board. Cruelty of boats. He sees them repeatedly, but they don't see him. No flares, no matches. Risky, stupid swim to styrofoam.

Chapter 7: A fight for life The Doldrums . . . rain . . . one mile per hour . . . waterspout . . . food and water, reminiscence of life on land . . . mothers, daughters etc. God, sort of . . . Córdoba drying up, turning into a skeleton . . . attempted suicide by throwing himself to sharks . . . Alvarenga stops him . . . starves himself, dies,Alveranga talks to the body as it mummifies, eases body into sea burial

Steve Callahan, survivor of another shipwreck: "I have a pet theory that one of the most dangerous things you can do is to try to minimize risks. If you never falll on your face, nothing happens, and so when something big happens, you're totally unpreapared, you have no tool kit." p 101 Christmas dinner . . . Cordoba eats turtle meat with poison snake inside . . . sick, but recovers