Survivor: The man found on the Marshall Islands said he ate turtles he caught barehanded.

Survivor: The man found on the Marshall Islands said he ate turtles he caught barehanded. Photo: Andrew Meares

Majuro: An emaciated man whose boat washed up on a remote Pacific atoll this week claims he survived 16 months adrift on the Pacific, floating more than 12,500 kilometres from Mexico, a researcher said Friday.

The man, with long hair and beard, was discovered on Thursday when his eight-metre fibreglass boat with propellerless engines floated onto the reef at Ebon Atoll and he was spotted by two locals.

"His condition isn't good, but he's getting better," said Ola Fjeldstad, a Norwegian anthropology student doing research on Ebon, the southern most outpost of the Marshalls.

Mr Fjeldstad said the man, dressed only in a pair of ragged underpants, claims he left Mexico for El Salvador in September 2012 with a companion who died at sea several months ago.

Details of his survival were sketchy, Mr Fjeldstad said, as the man only spoke Spanish, but he said his name was Jose Ivan. "The boat is really scratched up and looks like it has been in the water for a long time."

Mr Fjelstad said Mr Ivan indicated to thim that he survived by eating turtles, birds and fish and drinking turtle blood when there was no rain.

No fishing gear was on the boat and Mr Ivan suggested he caught turtles and birds with his bare hands, Mr Fjelstad said. There was a turtle on the boat when it landed at Ebon.

Stories of survival in the vast Pacific are not uncommon.

In 2006, three Mexicans made international headlines when they were discovered drifting, also in a small fibreglass boat near the Marshall Islands, in the middle of the ocean nine months after setting out on a shark-fishing expedition.

They survived on a diet of rainwater, raw fish and seabirds, and kept their hope alive by reading the Bible.

In 1992, two fishermen from Kiribati were at sea for 177 days before coming ashore in Samoa.

Mr Fjeldstad said the Marshall Islanders who found Mr Ivan took him to the main island on the atoll – which is so remote there is only one phone line at the council house and no internet service – to meet Mayor Ione de Brum, who phoned the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Majuro.

Officials at the Foreign Ministry said on Friday that they were waiting to get more details and for the man to be brought to Majuro.

The government airline's only plane able to land at Ebon is down for maintenance and is not expected to return to service until Tuesday at the earliest. Officials are considering sending a boat to pick up the castaway.

"He's staying at the local council house and a family is feeding him," Mr Fjeldstad said.

The Marshall Islands, in the northern Pacific, are home to barely 60,000 people spread over 24 atolls, with most of them an average of just two metres above sea level.

AFP