For 95 grueling days, Maximo Napa Castro drifted alone in the vast ocean, battling hunger, thirst, and despair.
He had no idea if he’d ever see land—or his family—again. But he refused to give up.
Stranded after his boat’s engine failed, the 61-year-old Peruvian fisherman rationed his meager supplies.
When those ran out, he turned to whatever the sea provided—birds, cockroaches, and, in a heartbreaking decision, a turtle.
“It’s either you or me,” he recalled thinking as he drank its blood for survival.
Through it all, he spoke to God—sometimes pleading, sometimes angry.
“Who’s going to save me?” he asked. Then, on March 12, his prayers were answered.
Who Is Going To Save Him?
A helicopter, dispatched from an Ecuadorian tuna boat, spotted him hundreds of miles off the Peruvian coast.
His daughter, Ines, never lost hope.
“We, as a family, never stopped believing we’d find my father,” she said.
When he finally stepped back onto solid ground, his brother embraced him, both men overwhelmed with emotion.
Now safely home, sunburned but alive, Napa Castro is looking forward to a warm meal and time with his family.
And at his homecoming, friends surprised him with a cake decorated with tiny birds, cockroaches, and a turtle—his unlikely companions in survival.
