Man survives 16 months at sea 在大海漂流16个月的水手

媒体英语会带大家一起学习 BBC 撰稿人在报道世界大事时常用到的单词和短语。

这听上去犹如好莱坞奇幻影片里的故事：一个人独自漂流海上长达16个月，与动物拼杀以获生存。这恰恰就是墨西哥渔民荷西·塞尔瓦多的历险记。他是在驾船驶向萨尔瓦多途中遇险的。以下是BBC记者 Susana Mendonça 的报道：

Fish, birds, turtles - anything he could get hold of, he would kill with his bare hands. Jose told his rescuers he even drank turtle blood to stay alive during the 16 months he says he was adrift at sea. When his boat finally washed up at Ebon Atoll on Thursday, halfway between Hawaii and Australia, he was emaciated and barely able to walk. Ola Fjeldstad, a Norwegian anthropology student who's doing research in the Marshall Islands, said Jose's fiberglass boat bore the signs of the harrowing 7,500-mile detour:

Ola Fjeldstad, anthropology student:

We first found his boat, which was probably a 24-footer, engine broken, grown over with shells and other sea animals. And it had a live baby bird, a dead turtle, some turtle shells, fish leftovers and it was in pretty bad condition.

And there's tragedy in this tale. There were two people on the boat when it set off from Mexico to El Salvador in September 2012, but Jose said his companion had died several months earlier. Little is known about the circumstances, as so far he's had to draw pictures to communicate with people on the remote Pacific island because they can't understand Spanish. Locals have been nursing the long-haired, bearded stranger back to health and Ola Fjeldstad says Jose's doing much better:

Ola Fjeldstad, anthropology student:

He's gained a lot of strength. He's been eating a lot of food, fish, rice, fruit and drinking coffee. He's in a lot better shape now. He's able to walk around by himself. He's cracking jokes!

There are good reasons to be cheerful; had he missed the Marshall Islands, it could have been another 1,000 or so miles before Jose would have had any hope of hitting land again.