Such a slim chance
What was clear, however, was that Alvarenga had been incredibly lucky to wash up on that beach at the tip of the Marshall Islands. He surely couldn’t have survived much longer out on the open ocean, with water scarce and having already lost most of his body weight.
Tile Islet is crazily easy to miss. It’s so small, and its location means that, had Alvarenga missed it, he would have had to drift another 3,000 miles before he reached the Philippines. There’s no way that he would have survived long enough to make landfall. Someone was obviously smiling down on him after all.