20,000 Miles South

by Helen Schreider

  One of the first things on the agenda in San José was to get as much firsthand information on coastal conditions as possible, and Mr. Lee Hunsaker, the USIS officer, was of great help in arranging appointments for us with everyone who knew anything at all about the area. With Mr. Honiball of United Fruit Company, Mr. Paris of Union Oil, and Mr. Harshberger of the U.S. Bureau of Public Roads we studied maps and aerial photographs, but most of the available material was on the interior. Little was known of the coast line between Dominical and Pedregal. We were advised to look up Tommy Brower, an American who ran a small hotel at Dominical and who was supposed to know more about that part of the Pacific coast than anyone else. But when we left San José we still had nothing more concrete than an untried amphibian and a theory.

  With scurrying around seeking information, procuring provisions, servicing the jeep, and searching for extra fuel containers the few days we spent in San José, Costa Rica, were busy ones. There was also the matter of a visa to Panama. At the consulate a white-haired gentleman cheerfully asked the necessary questions, but when he came to the one about mode of transport he automatically wrote down, “By air.” I informed him we weren’t going by plane. Before I could clarify that statement he scratched it out and wrote “By ship.” Again I hastily corrected him.

  “Well, how are you going?” he queried.

  At my reply, “By amphibious jeep,” he scratched out the whole question and just signed his name.

  Mr. Hunsaker and his vivacious wife Jane took us under their wing during our stay in San José. Their gentle hospitality was a refreshing interlude after life in La Tortuga. Mr. Hunsaker arranged an interview for us with Costa Rica’s President Figueres, a cultured MIT graduate who asked keen questions about our plans for getting into Panama, but who was just as dubious as the others as to La Tortuga’s ability to get us there. As far as the President was concerned, La Tortuga’s crew consisted of just captain and first mate. We discreetly avoided any mention of our mascot because of a quarantine law which she was dodging. Dinah usually accompanied us to the Hunsakers’ home and was very fond of their young daughter, Shelly. On one occasion, however, upon the arrival of the President’s limousine Dinah was relegated to the kitchen. Dinah hated to miss out on a party, but Shelly, excusing herself periodically, kept her well supplied with hors d’oeuvres.

  It was Palm Sunday, 1955, when we left San José for San Isidro over the hogback highway that skims along the top of the Talamanca range. A good portion of the distance was at elevations of between nine thousand and eleven thousand feet, and on clear days one is supposed to be able to see both the Atlantic and the Pacific oceans. The mist obscured everything that day, however, and by the time we had covered the seventy miles to San Isidro, rain was beating on the top of the jeep. We decided to accept Mr. Harshberger’s invitation to stop at the Bureau of Public Roads encampment and spend a dry night before continuing to Dominical. If the hull had sprung as many leaks as the roof, we wouldn’t get very far toward Panama.

  Noon the next day found us at Dominical, a tiny group of ramshackle wooden buildings and an equally ramshackle hotel owned by Tommy Brower. We had some difficulty distinguishing which among the natives at the bar was Mr. Brower, but when we did we plagued him with questions about the coast line, only to learn that he knew little more about it than the people in San José. He did tell us, however, of a place three miles south along the beach where the surf was not so bad. It was obvious that we could never go through the breakers in front of the town. They towered twenty feet at the crest. We had heard their roar long before we had seen them.

  Threading our way between trees and skirting patches of rock at the water’s edge, we drove the three miles to the end of the beach and set up camp in a cluster of coconut palms. The beach was blocked by a shale cliff that jutted a half mile into the sea. Behind us was a dense impenetrable forest. There was no way around the cliff except through the breakers.

  The rest of that afternoon we spent preparing La Tortuga for her maiden voyage. We repacked her with heavy things low down in the hull for stability and arranged our food into a daily menu. Topside, in a waterproof bag, I stowed the emergency gear: first aid kit, knife, a canteen of fresh water, three days’ supply of food, insect repellent, mosquito netting, and extra socks. I inflated the one-man rubber life raft and put it on top, and tightened the lashings on the twenty-gallon drum of gas topside, which, with a five-gallon can inside and our regular supply, gave us the required seventy gallons. Underneath the jeep I inspected each of the rubber seals and checked for holes in the hull. The life preservers we kept handy inside.

  Tommy Brower had told us that low tide should be about 6:00 P.M., and that it would be one hour later each day. When the jeep was ready, we strolled along the water’s edge. The beach was hard, but there were hundreds of boulders awash in the ebbing tide. The rocks would complicate things when we took off but, being able to choose a path, we thought we could avoid them. However, on landing we would have no choice, and we decided it would be advisable to land at high tide, when there would be plenty of water to get us over the rocks to the sandy beach beyond. Mr. Brower had also told us that the sea would be calmest in the morning and to limit our travel to those hours. Consequently we planned our first day on leaving at low tide at seven the next morning and making twenty miles to Mala Point, landing at high tide around 1:00 P.M.

  That night coconuts mingled with the rain that pelted the top of the jeep as we lay on our bunks listening to the constant thrash of the waves onshore. It was not the quiet lapping of wavelets I had described to Helen in answer to her vivid word picture of combers thundering on a rocky coast. In Alaska, nine thousand miles away, I had tried to reassure her, saying we would surely be able to find a secluded cove from which to take off into the sea. In quieting her fears I had oversimplified the whole thing to the point where I believed it myself. We would merely drive along the beach until we came to a rock outcropping, then take to the sea in a calm bay that would be conveniently close, continue in the water to another stretch of beach, and so on until we reached a road in Panama. Lying there that night, neither of us speaking, we both knew that my theory was not very realistic. So certain had I been, however, that we had never even tested the jeep in surf.

  At seven the next morning we were waiting at the edge of the water knowing no more about taking a jeep or even a boat through the surf than what the engraved brass plate on the dashboard instructed: “Approach at full throttle and steer course at right angles to the waves.” In a very short time I learned that I wasn’t the only one addicted to oversimplification. The engineer who wrote those instructions should have tried it himself.

  Somewhere I had read that there is a rhythm to ocean waves, that a big one is followed by several smaller ones in a definite cycle. Sitting tensely in the jeep, we studied the supposed rhythm, but they all looked big. With the windows and hatches tightly closed the heat from the radiator poured into the cab, turning it into an oven. When what seemed like the biggest wave had passed, we eased into the sea, four-wheel drive engaged, propeller spinning. As we went deeper the wheels lost power; the jeep wavered slightly, yawed a bit, and we were afloat. Quickly I shifted the wheels into neutral, pressed the throttle to the floor, and steered directly for the line of breakers. The first comber was already spent when it hit us, but La Tortuga shuddered from the force and foam covered the windshield. Ignoring my instinct to step on the brakes, I kept the throttle floored and headed straight into the wall of water that rushed at us like a bull at the Plaza de Toros. The breaker curled its crest into a white froth as the jeep plunged into it. La Tortuga reared like a horse, Helen grabbed for the dash, Dinah was thrown to the back, and I held grimly to the wheel. I flinched as the full force of the ten-foot-high comber crashed against the windshield, and we were slammed into the trough that followed. The next one crashed down on us, swallowing us. And then another. Then, past the breaker line, we were rising and falling smoothly on the long ground swells.


  It was several minutes before we recovered enough to notice that we were listing heavily to starboard. Shifting Dinah and everything movable inside, we tried to trim ship, but it wasn’t enough. Already a half mile from shore, we would have to turn back and move the drum of fuel topside.

  With the hatches again tightly closed and the jeep running at full throttle we headed for the same place from which we had taken off. Once inside the breaker line, there was no turning back. The first swell swept under the jeep; with the water traveling in the same direction as we were, the rudder had almost no control. Closer to shore the next wave lifted the stern, the bow pointed down, and we surfboarded toward the beach, fighting the wheel as the jeep yawed from side to side. With absolutely no rudder control we rushed along at what seemed terrific speed, tipped crazily on the crest of the comber, white water thrashing on either side. I felt the wheels touch bottom, I shifted into gear, and we rolled up on the sand.

  By the time we had relocated the heavy fuel drum the tide was halfway in. There were only three hours left before high water. We decided to shorten our run to Uvita Point, some ten miles away. The surf was considerably worse when we took off the second time.

  Once safely outside the breaker line and clear of the rocky point, we plotted our course for Uvita Point and tried to enjoy the novel experience of driving an automobile on the Pacific Ocean. At first, when the giant swells rolled toward the jeep, towering over us like mountains around a valley, we whipped the rudder around and tried to meet them head on. We soon realized that they only swept harmlessly beneath us, lifting us gently and then lowering us into the trough again. If we could ignore the feeling of insecurity, the knowledge that only a thin piece of steel and a few rubber seals kept out the fathoms of water below us, it was not much different than driving a jeep along the highway. The controls were the same, but the response was sluggish. The motor was making as much noise as if we were moving at thirty miles per hour, but instead of road shock there was a gentle rocking motion. The rumble of the propeller replaced the tire hum, waves slapped in the fender wells, and instead of a thirty-mile-per-hour wind there was only the three-mile-per-hour gurgle of the wake.

  Our navigational aides were simple. We had a clock to check the tides, binoculars to check the shore, a hydrographic chart surveyed by the U.S.S. Ranger in 1885, and a compass which we had no intention of needing.

  Our theory had already undergone several changes. We could see stretches of beach, but they were short ones, and the time saved in driving along them was not worth the risk of an unnecessary landing. Our revised plans were to stay at sea until nearly high tide, landing south of any outcropping of rock. Then, while waiting for the next low tide, we could drive along the beach to the next obstacle.

  We followed the coast line about two miles out, avoiding masses of drifting seaweed. With the binoculars we scanned the shore line, trying to identify the landmarks and check them off on the chart.

  It was almost high tide when we made out the turbulence that marked Uvita Point, a long sand spit that projected into the sea. The water looked calmest just south of a high headland that dropped into the sea about two miles nearer to us. Steering at right angles to the waves, we headed in that direction. When we had gone back at Dominical, there had been no indication of the height of the waves from the seaward side. It was the same as we approached the beach at Uvita.

  With the accelerator floored we entered the breaker line. There was the same surge toward shore as the first unborn breaker passed under us, and then the same thrust from the stern. The bow nosed down. Again we surfboarded out of control. Standing almost on her nose, La Tortuga rushed forward, caught on the crest with the trough twenty feet below. I felt as if we were in the front car of a roller coaster at the top of the first drop. Terrified, thinking we were going stern over bow, I let up on the gas, hoping the comber would slip under us and we would straighten out. Instead, with no propeller wash past the rudder, we lost the last bit of control. La Tortuga spun broadside to the waves, heeled over on her side. The engine sputtered and died. For an eternity we hung there while wave after wave slammed against the bottom of the hull, wondering why the jeep didn’t go over, praying it wouldn’t and knowing it should. The whole portside was completely submerged, water streamed in through the seals around the doors. Dinah and Helen scrambled for something to hang on to and tried to keep out of my way as I frantically worked the throttle and ground on the starter.

  Miraculous is a word much overused, one that is often applied to many things with common-sense explanations. But for us that day at Uvita Point it is the only word that explains the sudden lull in the waves, the way the jeep wallowed right side up, and the starting of the gasoline-flooded engine. On the deserted shore we climbed limply from the hatch and stared back at the surf. It was every bit as high as in front of the hotel at Dominical.

  The rest of that afternoon we sat under the palms that edged the shore, our mouths dry, our hearts pounding. Red crabs played at our feet, the beach was strewn with coconuts, a few of which helped to quench our thirst. That landing caused a complete reversal of our by now thoroughly shaken theory. We were determined never to land at high tide again. Perhaps if we landed at low tide the surf would be less severe. This opposite approach, however, imposed other problems. During that week low tide came early in the morning and after dark at night. It would be necessary to start as soon as it was light enough to see and to plan on the very short runs we could make in the few hours before the morning low tide.

  At 5:30 A.M. the next day we headed for Mala Point, some ten miles away, planning to land there shortly after low tide at 8:00 A.M. Staying as close to shore as possible, we scanned the beach and the water, straining to make out details in the early morning light. Through the muting haze we could see several rock islands ahead. The chart located these islands about two miles out and showed a string of smaller rock pinnacles on either side, but it indicated a clear channel between them and the cliffs onshore. We debated whether to go out around the string, which would mean an additional five miles. We decided to trust the chart and head for the channel rather than land two hours after low tide.

  Thrusting from the blue water to heights varying from a few feet to 116 feet, the string of rocks formed an arc from shore like a funnel, with the channel at the far end its neck. We cut the throttle and watched the birds nesting on the massive bare crowns of the rocks and the white froth blending with their chalky bases where the sea had left rings of salt. There was no indication that the chart was in error until we were almost to the channel. In the trough between swells we saw jagged fingers of stone break through the surface of the water. We were too close to turn around. Reverse gear had little effect. In slow motion we drifted toward the rocks. To give the rudder more control I floored the throttle. Almost blindly I picked a space between the fingers. Like an ant between the teeth of a saw we crawled through on the crest of a swell. Dumbly I gripped the wheel long after we were clear. How long, I wondered, would Lady Luck ride as supercargo?

  Landing at low tide gave us the same chill as before, but we reached the beach safely about 8:30 A.M. With the next low tide coming after dark that night, we couldn’t put to sea until the following morning. To the south we could see a long stretch of beach that curved to join the flat horizon of blue and brown. Behind the beige strip of beach were salty marshes and mangrove swamps. The chart showed fifteen miles of shore line broken by only a few river mouths. Keeping on the hard sand near the water’s edge, we drove as fast as twenty miles per hour until we came to the first river mouth. It was a wide shallow delta of brown water, choppy from the meeting of the current and ocean swells. Following the shore line to the narrowest part, about a half mile across, we eased down the slick bank unaware that one of the side radiator exhaust hatches was ajar. There was no direction to the waves, they slapped on all sides as we churned erratically toward the other side. Near midstream an extra-large wave splashed through the crack in the hatch that was ajar, flooding the
engine with salt water. With the jeep drifting helplessly, the hood open to any stray wave, I worked nervously on deck, drying the spark plugs and distributor. I signaled Helen to press the starter button. The motor would not respond. She threw me another dry towel, and I wiped everything again. With relief I heard the engine cough and take hold. I secured the hood and quickly climbed over the windshield and through the open top hatch into the cab.

  By the time we were across the tide was in, and the beach was too narrow to drive on. With her front wheels awash, we parked La Tortuga among the debris of bleached driftwood and took protection from the sun in the only shade, under the rear overhang of the jeep. There was no sound but the thrash of the sea; we wondered what else it held in store.

  When the tide receded, we continued along the beach, getting stuck in the black mud of river mouths and in the soft uncertain sand of the shore. For one stretch of several miles a six-foot wall of sand kept us driving partly in the water. At high tide the wall would be covered. When the wheels fell into a soft patch of sand and I winched out to a buried log, I thought of what would happen if the tide caught us between that wall and the sea. At dusk we reached the widest river mouth and made camp, planning to cross in the morning.

  That night a fisherman approached our camp, the first person we had seen since leaving Dominical. A young fellow, he reminded me of Tomás in southern Mexico. Curiously, and hesitantly, he asked where we had come from. Squatting on the black sand in the white moonlight, he described the coast line ahead. He could not understand how we had gotten so far, but he said that what lay ahead was worse. He suggested that we go back. But going back was out of the question.