Shipwreck survivor Jose Salvador Alvarenga meets dead shipmate Ezequiel Cordova’s mum

A CASTAWAY who says he survived more than a year at sea has had a tearful meeting with the family of his shipmate who did not make it home.

THE Salvadoran castaway who says he survived more than a year at sea has had a tearful meeting with the family of his shipmate who did not make it home.

Jose Salvador Alvarenga travelled from his homeland to neighbouring Mexico to speak with the parents and siblings of Ezequiel Cordova, 24. They welcomed the visitor with tearful hugs and met with him for three hours privately. “This gives me some peace, because in my dreams, he asked me to speak with his mother,” said Alvarenga, 37, choking back tears. Alvarenga says the man he hired as a helper died four months after their fishing boat broke down because he could not stomach a diet of urine, turtle blood, and raw fish and bird flesh. MORE: STUDY BACKS CASTAWAY’S REMARKABLE TALE MORE: CASTAWAY’S EMOTIONAL REUNION WITH FAMILY Alvarenga washed ashore in the Marshall Islands on January 30, telling reporters he survived the 12,500km voyage in a seven-metre fibreglass boat after leaving Mexico's Pacific coast — in Chiapas state — 13 months earlier. “He gave me strength,” Alvarenga recalled of his shipmate. Alvarenga says that he and Cordova made a pact that if one of them survived, they would visit the other one's family to tell the astonishing tale. Cordova's family had said it did not blame Alvarenga, who has risen to worldwide fame because of his story of survival, but wanted to know what happened. MORE: CASTAWAY’S DIET OF DOG FOOD AND TURTLE BLOOD MORE: CASTAWAY COULD HAVE BEEN SAVED MONTH’S EARLIER Alvarenga's lawyer Benedicto Pereira said his client told Cordova's mother he could not throw her son's body overboard for three days, hoping against hope Cordova might still awaken. After the emotional meeting, Alvarenga headed to the Chiapas state town of Chocohuital, where he lived for several years and has many fishermen friends with whom he plans to share memories of his odyssey.