Six boys survived — and even thrived — by being good to one another after they were shipwrecked on a deserted island in 1965.

Jose Salvador Alvarenga has surprised doctors with his good physical condition, though they caution that the famed castaway is psychologically fragile as he recovers from what he has described as more than a year adrift at sea.

The Salvadoran man who says he spent more than a year drifting across the Pacific Ocean made a brief public appearance Thursday looking much weaker than he did earlier in the week.

A man whose fibreglass boat washed up on a remote Pacific island claims he survived 16 months adrift.