Fisherman found alive after drifting over 90 days at sea says he survived eating birds, turtles and cockroaches

A Peruvian fisherman was found alive after drifting at sea for 94 days, a navy official said Saturday, as he was discharged from hospital following his ordeal.

Maximo Napa, 61, was rescued in his small fishing boat on Tuesday after being spotted by an Ecuadoran vessel off the coast of Chimbote in northern Peru.

He told local media in a tearful interview that he survived at sea by eating cockroaches, birds and turtles.

“I didn’t want to die, for my mother. I have a two-month-old granddaughter — I clung to that. Every day I thought about my mother,” Napa said.

Th Peruvian navy posted images of the rescue, including one showing Napa reuniting with his brother after being rescued and another showing the fisherman receiving medical attention.

On Saturday, he was discharged from hospital in the coastal city of Paita.

“Mr. Napa arrived in good physical condition. He could walk, wash himself. Shocked, but in good physical condition,” said Peruvian Navy port captain Jorge Gonzalez.

The fisherman had set sail on Dec. 7 from the port of San Juan de Marcona but bad weather conditions and the current caused him to lose course.

His small boat, which had no radio beacon, ended up on the high seas.

“It is a miracle that my father has been found,” his daughter Ines Napa told the RPP radio station. “We, as a family, never gave up hope of finding him.”

His niece, Leyla Torres Napa, told the RPP radio station the family planned to celebrate his birthday, which passed while he was lost at sea, according to the BBC.

“The day of his birth was unique because all that he could eat [while at sea] was a small cookie, so it is very important for us that we celebrate because, for us, he has been reborn,” she said.

Napa’s ordeal comes just months after the dramatic rescue of another man lost at sea for an extended period of time. In October, Russian Mikhail Pichugin was rescued after spending more than two months adrift in a small inflatable boat in the Sea of Okhotsk, off the coast of Russia.  He said he survived by battling shivering cold and drinking rainwater. Pichugin, 46, had set off to watch whales with his 49-year-old brother and 15-year-old nephew. But the boat’s engine shut down on their way back on Aug. 9. Pichugin’s brother and nephew later died, and he tied their bodies to the boat to prevent them from being washed away.

In 2023, an Australian sailor said he survived more than two months lost at sea with his dog. Tim Shaddock, 51, and his dog Bella were sailing from Mexico to French Polynesia when rough seas damaged their boat and its electronics system, leaving them adrift and cut off from the world.