Man survives 16 months at sea 在大海漂流16個月的水手

媒體英語會帶大家一起學習 BBC 撰稿人在報道世界大事時常用到的單詞和短語。

這聽上去猶如好萊塢奇幻影片里的故事：一個人獨自漂流海上長達16個月，與動物拼殺以獲生存。這恰恰就是墨西哥漁民荷西·塞爾瓦多的歷險記。他是在駕船駛向薩爾瓦多途中遇險的。以下是BBC記者 Susana Mendon?a 的報道：

Fish, birds, turtles - anything he could get hold of, he would kill with his bare hands. Jose told his rescuers he even drank turtle blood to stay alive during the 16 months he says he was adrift at sea. When his boat finally washed up at Ebon Atoll on Thursday, halfway between Hawaii and Australia, he was emaciated and barely able to walk. Ola Fjeldstad, a Norwegian anthropology student who's doing research in the Marshall Islands, said Jose's fiberglass boat bore the signs of the harrowing 7,500-mile detour:

Ola Fjeldstad, anthropology student:

We first found his boat, which was probably a 24-footer, engine broken, grown over with shells and other sea animals. And it had a live baby bird, a dead turtle, some turtle shells, fish leftovers and it was in pretty bad condition.

And there's tragedy in this tale. There were two people on the boat when it set off from Mexico to El Salvador in September 2012, but Jose said his companion had died several months earlier. Little is known about the circumstances, as so far he's had to draw pictures to communicate with people on the remote Pacific island because they can't understand Spanish. Locals have been nursing the long-haired, bearded stranger back to health and Ola Fjeldstad says Jose's doing much better:

Ola Fjeldstad, anthropology student:

He's gained a lot of strength. He's been eating a lot of food, fish, rice, fruit and drinking coffee. He's in a lot better shape now. He's able to walk around by himself. He's cracking jokes!

There are good reasons to be cheerful; had he missed the Marshall Islands, it could have been another 1,000 or so miles before Jose would have had any hope of hitting land again.