A Taiwanese fishing crew has just rescued three fisherman who had spent nine months lost at sea. Host Madeleine Brand will talk to Hector Tobar of The Los Angeles Times about the story, which he reported from Mexico City.
MADELEINE BRAND, host: Here is your dinner-table anecdote for tonight. Three Mexican fishermen who were lost at sea for the last nine months have been found alive and healthy, albeit skinny and sunburned. They survived by eating birds and raw fish and by collecting rainwater. The story is in today's Los Angeles Times. Reporter Hector Tobar joins me now from Mexico City. And, Hector, this is a remarkable story. How were these men found?</s>Mr. HECTOR TOBAR (Reporter, The Los Angeles Times): They were found by a Taiwanese crew on a tuna fishing boat that is based in the Marshall Islands. They were found more than halfway between the coast of Mexico and Australia, so they were out there 5,000 miles from the place they had set out from.</s>MADELEINE BRAND, host: I guess the Taiwanese crew didn't necessarily speak Spanish, and these men didn't necessarily speak Chinese, so how did they communicate?</s>Mr. HECTOR TOBAR (Reporter, The Los Angeles Times): The three fishermen wrote their names on a piece of paper, and that paper was faxed from the ship - from the tuna ship to the home base of the ship on the Marshall Islands in the port of Majuro. And that was the way in which the world sort of learned the identify of these men, and the word eventually got back to Mexico that they were alive.</s>MADELEINE BRAND, host: And tell us more about how they survived these long nine months.</s>Mr. HECTOR TOBAR (Reporter, The Los Angeles Times): Well, initially, they told their Chinese rescuers that they survived by capturing sea birds and drinking rain water. They were on a boat that was 27-feet long, so it wasn't exactly a raft, and they did set out apparently for a journey of a couple of weeks initially to do some deep-sea fishing. So they had some initial supplies. One of their grandparents said that they had taken a supply of lemons with them on board, which I guess helped them fight off scurvy, among other things.</s>MADELEINE BRAND, host: I guess it's a good thing that they were fishermen.</s>Mr. HECTOR TOBAR (Reporter, The Los Angeles Times): Yes, and they apparently had all the equipment that, you know -their boat almost sank a couple of times, but otherwise the ship was fine.</s>MADELEINE BRAND, host: Well speaking of equipment, why didn't they have any equipment that would signal where they were back home or anything, any modern equipment that could help them out?</s>Mr. HECTOR TOBAR (Reporter, The Los Angeles Times): Well, many of the fishermen now have cell phones - and cell phones are so cheap to get - and they can call, you know, within 20 or 30 miles of the coastline if they have a problem. But these guys apparently are all in their early 20s, without much money, trying to make a little bit extra. They just really didn't have any equipment whatsoever other than their two outboard motors and their sort of guile, which allowed them to survive.</s>MADELEINE BRAND, host: And what's been the reaction since they've returned home?</s>Mr. HECTOR TOBAR (Reporter, The Los Angeles Times): Well, many of the relatives had given them up for dead, so I think the initial reaction was one of shock. One of the men I interviewed via telephone in San Blas told me he was trembling as he was talking to me, because we had actually been the ones to inform his family that this relative of his had been found. And it was just something so outside the realm of experience for people there.</s>Mr. HECTOR TOBAR (Reporter, The Los Angeles Times): Very often men are lost in this area because of the poverty there of the fishermen, and so, you know, people go off into the ocean and they never come back and you don't expect to see them again. And to have someone come back after almost a year was just really seen a real-life miracle.</s>MADELEINE BRAND, host: Los Angeles Times reporter Hector Tobar in Mexico City. Thank you.</s>Mr. HECTOR TOBAR (Reporter, The Los Angeles Times): Hey, thank you.