For 95 days, Máximo Napa Castro, 61, was alone and lost at sea, praying to God and clinging to the hope that he would one day see his mother again.
Without food or water, he ate cockroaches, birds and finally a turtle, whose blood he drank to slake his thirst.
He talked to God, getting angry at points. “I said to him, ‘What am I going to find here?’” he said. “Who’s going to save me?”
Then he asked for forgiveness.
“Someone is coming or a helicopter is coming,” he recalled thinking. “And then the next day, he sent me a helicopter.”
It was March 12, and Mr. Napa Castro, a Peruvian fisherman, had been spotted by the crew of an Ecuadorean tuna boat hundreds off miles off the Peruvian coast, the Peruvian news source RPP News reported.
He had been at sea since Dec. 7, when he left the Peruvian port of Marcona, Peruvian news outlets reported.
Mr. Napa Castro had set out on a voyage to catch roe, packing enough food for a month, according to Andina, a Peruvian state news outlet.
But on Dec. 20, after less than two weeks at sea, the engine on his boat broke down, RPP News reported. He rationed his food supplies, including rice and crackers that he had on board, and collected rain to drink, his family told Peruvian news media.
But there were days when Mr. Napa Castro did not eat at all and there was no rain to collect. Still, he believed he would survive. “I said to myself, ‘I won’t die, because I have my children and mother,’” he said.
Catching the turtle was a major break, he said, but he did not like having to kill it. “It’s either you or me,” he recalled thinking.
Mr. Napa Castro’s daughter, Ines Napa Torres, told RPP News that local fishermen had searched for her father, to no avail. She said the family had also urged the authorities to conduct an aerial search. His boat didn’t have a radio beacon that would have made it easier to locate, RPP News reported.
Still, Ms. Napa Torres told RPP News, “We, as a family, never lost faith — the hope — that we would find my father.”
After he was spotted by the tuna boat, Mr. Napa Castro was taken by helicopter to a Peruvian Coast Guard vessel, where he was given medical attention, according to the Peruvian Navy, which posted a photo on Instagram of a medic treating him.
Ms. Napa Torres said her father was sunburned and dehydrated. She called it a “miracle” that he had survived.
On Friday, Mr. Napa Castro walked off a dock in Peru and was embraced by his brother, who was there to greet him, video showed. Both men sobbed.
“I didn’t want to die, for my mother,” Mr. Napa Castro told reporters through tears. “I have a 2-month-old granddaughter. I clung to her. Every day, I thought about my mother.”
Later, Mr. Napa Castro told reporters that he was looking forward to a home-cooked meal of arroz con pollo, a pork stew called carapulcra and a noodle dish called sopa seca.
He was also welcomed home with a celebration, where cheering friends, relatives and neighbors presented him with a cake adorned with decorative birds, cockroaches and a turtle.
His mother, Elena Castro, who sat by his side at the celebration, said she had prayed that she would see her son again.
“I told God: Whether he’s alive or dead, bring him here, even if it’s just to see him,” she told Andina. “But my daughters never lost faith. They kept telling me, ‘Mom, he’ll come back; he’ll come back.’”
