Shipwrecked fishermen survive nine months

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THREE famished Mexican fishermen rescued near the Marshall Islands last week survived on "everything raw" as they drifted for more than nine months and more than 8000 kilometres across the Pacific.

"We ate raw sea gulls, ducks and fish. We ate everything raw ... any fish that came near the boat we grabbed it and gulped it down," one of the fishermen, Jesus Vidana, told Televisa channel in an interview late yesterday.

He said his ordeal began on October 28 last year when he shipped out from the port of Sinaloa with two mates to fish for shark and the engine broke down.

It ended August 9 when they were picked up by a Taiwanese fishing boat belonging to Koo's Fishing Co, near the Marshall Islands.

Mr Vidana said when times were good they had enough food for three days, and when things got bad they would go several days without a bite to eat.

"We never lost hope because up there there's God Almighty and I have a lot of faith in Him, and I knew he was going to help us," he said.

The three shipwrecked mates, he said, took turns reading the Bible.

"We prayed together all the time," Mr Vidada said. A second survivor, Lucio Rendon, said they went for several months without sighting a ship.

"Then suddenly we saw ships going by and we'd reached the other side (of the Pacific), we were with the Japanese and Chinese."

Mr Videna said he and his friends got through their ordeal in good health, although "our legs, faces and arms are a little swollen.