Three Mexican shark fishermen claim that they survived more than nine months at sea in a small boat by eating raw fish and drinking rain water as they drifted thousands of miles across the Pacific Ocean.

The fishermen said they left their home town of San Blas on Mexico's Pacific coast last October to fish for sharks. But due to some mechanical problems at the boat and adverse winds they were blown towards the sea.

The fishermen were rescued by employees of Koo's Fishing Co. near the Marshall Islands.

Eugene Muller, manager of the fishing company told the AP Tuesday that the company's boat picked up the three on Aug. 9 and that the men were recovering and would be brought back to Majuro, the islands' capital, in 10 to 14 days.

Jesus Vidana, 27, one of the survivor told Mexico's Televisa news network in a telephone hook-up to the ship's communications system: "We fished and we ate the fish raw ... because there was no fire to cook with."

He said once they went 15 days without food and survived only on water as "it rained every day."

Vidana said all of them read the Bible as they drifted across the Pacific.

"We never lost hope because there is a God up there," he said, sounding hoarse and sleepy. "Our feet are swollen, our arms are swollen ... but we're not in that bad shape."

Though Vidana said they have been traveling for "nine months and nine days," a government news agency Notimex interviewed relatives of the men in San Blas, who said they had only been missing for three months.

Muller said men's boat appeared to have engine problems. "They were very skinny and very hungry. The first thing we did, we gave them something to eat and they chowed down," he said.

Another survivor Lucio Rendon, 27, recalled that "we didn't see any ships for months," and Vidana said they were asleep when the Koo's crew called out to them.

Salvador Ordonez, the third survivor, said the three carried only flashlights and a compass but had faith that they were going to live.