Lasting questions
There were also those who had questions about the plausibility of Alvarenga’s story. Investigators set to work finding the answers. They spoke to Willy and matched the serial number of the fishing boat that left Mexico to the one in which Alvarenga washed up in, 14 months later.
They interviewed the man in charge of the search and rescue team and spoke with survival experts to work out whether it was actually possible for someone to survive at sea for that long. There were even those who argued that he was a scammer who was just trying to get a free holiday on the beautiful Marshall Islands.