Keeping hope alive wasn\u2019t easy. His morale dwindled along with his food supply. It reached a point where he thought he didn\u2019t want to live anymore. <\/p>\n
\u201cI even got a knife three times. Three times I got the knife because I couldn\u2019t take it anymore,\u201d he said. \u201cBut I told myself: Calm down, Gat\u00f3n. You can do it. You can do it.\u201d <\/p>\n
He said he had packed enough supplies to last him a month. And after those first 30 days at sea, he was ready to head back to land. But that\u2019s when his boat\u2019s motor stopped running. He tried many times to get it to work again, but to no avail. <\/p>\n
From there, he knew he had to ration the few scraps of food and water he had left, hoping it would last him long enough for someone to find him. But after another month or so, his rations ran out. So, he turned to drastic measures. <\/p>\n
\u201cAfter January and February, that\u2019s when I started eating roaches and birds, various kinds of fish that happened to jump into the boat.\u201d <\/p>\n
He said he had to hunt those birds in the middle of the night. Around 1 or 2 a.m. they would rest on top of his boat and fall asleep. Once they did, he got a club, snuck up behind them and \u201cpop.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t want to do it but I didn\u2019t have a choice. It was my life.\u201d <\/p>\n
At one point, he even had to hunt a turtle \u2013 not for its meat but for its blood since he didn\u2019t have anything else to drink. <\/p>\n
Not long after that, a hopeful sign finally arrived. <\/p>\n
He was about to fall asleep inside his boat. But just 30 minutes later, he heard a loud voice screaming his nickname: \u201cGat\u00f3n!\u201d <\/p>\n
It was a rescue worker on a helicopter. <\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s when I said (to God): You did it! You did it!\u201d <\/p>\n
The people on board the helicopter gestured to him that another boat would arrive soon to take him home. <\/p>\n
After about an hour, as night fell, he finally saw the lights of the boat. He was going home. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt was something sensational,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
After those excruciating 95 days, he now says he has a newfound appreciation for life. <\/p>\n
\u201cI will tell my story worldwide, so the world knows that God is everything in this life, that we put our hand on our chest and fill ourselves with love, give love. That is what we need here on Earth.\u201d <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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