Pacific castaway arrives back in civilisation

Sporting a bushy beard and clutching a can of Coke, a castaway who says he survived more than a year adrift in the Pacific Ocean arrived in the Marshall Islands capital Majuro yesterday.

A male nurse had to help the man previously identified as Jose Ivan down the gangplank of a police patrol boat after a 22-hour trip from the remote atoll where he washed ashore last week after apparently setting sail from Mexico on December 24, 2012.

About 1,000 curious onlookers crowded the dock for a glimpse of the long-haired fisherman, who smiled and waved briefly before he was whisked away for a medical check-up at Majuro Hospital.

The castaway told United States ambassador Thomas Armbruster, who was acting as an interpreter for Marshall Islands authorities, that he was originally from El Salvador but had been living in Mexico for 15 years before his epic voyage.

"He said he is a shrimp and shark fisherman," Armbruster said in Majuro, minutes after talking to him. "He looked better than one would expect."

Foreign ministry officials said he told them during a debriefing that he was 37-year-old Jose Salvador Albarengo.