6 Jose Salvador Alvarenga – The first person to survive for thirteen months on a small fishing boat in the Pacific Ocean. He and his boatmate survived on raw fish, turtle meat and blood, small birds, sharks, rainwater, and even their urine for those thirteen months.

A fisherman by profession, he set out in his fishing boat with a co-worker from the coast of Mexico on November 17, 2012. Very soon after they set out, they were hit by a storm that lasted for five days, and they lost their way.

They did not have any kind of equipment with them to maneuver the boat, and it began drifting on the currents. After finishing the available food stock, they had to hunt and eat fish, turtles, jellyfish, and seabirds. They had to depend on rainwater, turtle blood, or their own urine for quenching their thirst.

After four months, his co-worker died of starvation since he gave up eating raw food. He claimed to have kept track of days by counting moon phases. He finally reached the Marshall Islands, where the locals rescued him. (source)

7 Narcisse Pelletier – A French cabin boy whose ship voyage encountered numerous complications, and the crew had to land on an island. Narcisse underwent a lot of hardships, like drinking urine and seawater for survival before being rescued by an Aboriginal family.

In August 1857, when Narcisse Pelletier was a fourteen-year-old, he set out from Marseilles as a cabin boy on the Saint-Paul, which was carrying wine for Bombay. The ship then went to Hong Kong to pick up many Chinese laborers and transport them to Australian goldfields.

To refill the depleting necessities, the ship stopped at a small island. While in search of water, some men were attacked and killed. Pelletier was hit by a rock and attacked by men from a nearby island, but he and some members managed to escape the attack and boarded a longboat.

They again faced scarcity of food and had to eat seabirds, drink seawater, and even their urine. Pelletier was later rescued in a fragile state by an Aboriginal family. (source)

8 Nakahama Manjiro – A fisherman by profession, he was once aboard a ship with his four friends when the ship wrecked on the island of Torishima. Rescued by an American ship, they reached Honolulu. Due to Japan’s then law of isolation, none of them could return to Japan, and Manjiro decided to continue with the ship crew and managed to reach the United States.

In 1841, when Manjiro was fourteen years old, he went fishing with his four friends, and their boat was beached on Torishima Island. They were rescued by an American ship and ended up in Honolulu.

It was at that time when Manjiro decided to stay on the ship and was taken to the United States by Captain Whitfield. He studied English for survival and managed to get aboard the whaler Franklin which was set to go to back to Honolulu. Manjiro again met his four friends. However, none of them were able to go to Japan because Japan had an isolation policy under which leaving the country was a punishable offense.

A few years later, Manjiro and two of the friends decided to go back to Japan. When they reached Okinawa, however, they were immediately arrested. After investigating and questioning them, they were released, and Manjiro was appointed a minor official. (source)

9 Philip Ashton – He was a fisherman from Massachusetts who was abducted by pirates. Though he managed to escape the pirates’ captivity, he remained a castaway for sixteen months on an island. He had to survive in an extremely hot climate infested with insects and alligators.

In June 1722, Philip Ashton had set out fishing near the coast of Shelburne, Nova Scotia, when pirates caught him. While under the captivity of pirates, Ashton behaved like a total rebel and did not cooperate with the pirates, so he was often threatened.

When the pirates landed on Roatan Island, Ashton managed to escape and hid in the jungle full of insects and alligators. He even weathered the extremely hot climate. He met one more castaway who disappeared after a few days leaving behind some equipment that Ashton could use to kill and eat tortoises and crayfish. He was finally rescued after sixteen months by a ship from Massachusetts. (source)

10 Juana Maria – She was a native American and the last surviving member of her tribe, the Nicoleno. She lived by herself for eighteen years on San Nicolas Island, which was part of the archipelago of the Channel Islands off the California coast. After many unsuccessful attempts, the Santa Barbara Mission finally found her.

The tribe of Nicolenos lived on San Nicolas Island, which was once attacked by Kodiak natives from Alaska. This attack resulted in the slaughter of most of the Nicoleno males and the captivity of the women.

In the 1830s, after the Kodiaks left the island, there were only about a hundred Nicolenos left, and many of them abandoned the island soon after. In 1835, the Santa Barbara Mission arranged an operation to rescue the remaining islanders and bring them to the mainland. They sent ships to relocate the islanders, and according to a story, only one member of the tribe was left behind because she was in search of her infant and could not reach the rescue boat in time.

She was Juana Maria. She had to spend the next eighteen years alone on the island. She lived in a cave to hide from more attacks, so could not be easily found in spite of many attempts by the Santa Barbara Mission. Finally, in 1853, she was found by the Mission, and she arrived on the mainland. (1,2)