José Salvador Alvarenga is a Salvadoran fisherman who spent 13 months adrift at sea. He is the first person in recorded history to have survived in a small boat at sea for more than a year.

On November 17, 2012, Alvarenga set off on a professional fishing trip with a young fisherman named Ezequiel Cordoba, with whom he had never worked. Having embarked from a fishing village on the Pacific coast of Mexico's southern Chiapas state, they planned to be out about 30 hours hunting shark, tuna and mahi mahi.

A few hours into their voyage, a storm struck that lasted five days and blew them off course. Alvarenga called his boss on the ship’s radio for help, but it—and much of the rest of the boat’s electronics—had been disabled by the storm. The boat's motor was also damaged.

A search party was sent, but after two days with no success, their boss gave up and assumed they had drowned.

Alone and without food or supplies, the two fishermen survived by eating raw fish, turtles and jellyfish. They drank rainwater and turtle blood.