20,000 Miles South

by Helen Schreider

  At Coco Solo we went over our route with Commander Beebe, who was in charge in Captain Thorn’s absence. With the pilots we were checked out on the radio, a handie-talkie with a range of about six miles. The Navy’s identification was, appropriately, “Angel,” while we answered to “Turtle.”

  On Wednesday morning, May 18, the M.S. La Tortuga was ready for what we conservatively believed to be a three-week journey. She was provisioned with a month’s supply of Army C rations, a case of canned dog food for Dinah and, as peace offering to the Indians, a good supply of soap and cigarettes. Before she set sail there was a steady stream of Navy personnel to inspect her. Along with more dire predictions, there were warnings about the chocosanos that were due at any time. Everyone wished us well, and there were even one or two who thought we might make it. One of the last visitors was Commander Bookhammer, who pressed into Helen’s hand a small square box. With a wink and a big grin he said, “Every ship should have an extra compass.”

  At María Chiquita, the end of a dirt road ten miles north-east of Colón, Admiral Miles and several of his officers and their families waved from the shore as we drove into the Caribbean and kept going.

  CHAPTER SIX

  THE sea was a gray undulating sheet under the overcast sky. There was a light wind, and the jeep rolled with the ground swells. It was several minutes before I got the feel of the controls again. I felt the same thrill, almost of wonderment, at the thought that a half hour before La Tortuga was weaving in and out of traffic, and now she was waterborne. Except for two things there was really little difference between her and the big ships we saw far out to sea heading for the Canal. She was a little smaller, somewhat slower, and she was not following any shipping lanes. The waters we were navigating were given a wide berth by all but a few small boats that traded with the natives along the coast, and even they kept well out from the shore. Although the tide was negligible and the surf of no consequence in most places, the water ahead was a maze of reefs that could tear the bottom from La Tortuga. But in spite of this we skirted the coast line as closely as possible, ready to head for shore at the first sign of a storm, constantly alert for any change in the color of water or the froth of foam that might indicate the presence of shoals. Not trusting the charts, absurdly cautious with the memory of Costa Rica still fresh, we steered a circuitous course around anything that broke the monotonous gray color of the ocean, even to going several miles out of our way to avoid what turned out to be merely floating vegetable debris.

  While the motor ticked off a reassuring even drone, Helen sat on top marking the points and promontories on the chart. Eight nautical miles away lay our first stop, Portobelo, a forgotten town that was once the most important commercial center on the Atlantic coast. At the wheel I wondered how Columbus felt more than four hundred and fifty years earlier when he had cruised along this same coast line, studying the same frothing sea against the same rocks and the same dark green wall of jungle. On his fourth voyage to the New World, still searching for a non-existent strait to the Indies, his four battered caravels had taken refuge in the harbor for which we were headed. Without charts he must have stumbled on it by accident—even knowing where it was, we had trouble finding it.

  It was Columbus, in 1502, who had named Portobelo, Portuguese for beautiful port. Later, when gold and silver started flowing from the mines of the Incas to the Spanish galleons, and then to the coffers of King Philip II of Spain, Portobelo became the terminus of the narrow trail across the Isthmus over which burros and slaves transshipped the treasures of the Pacific to the Atlantic. Once each year Portobelo had roused itself from its tropical lethargy, merchants set up shop in the alleys, and cocoa, jewels, and wool from Peru were bartered for rice, corn, hogs, and cattle from Cartagena, which in turn were exchanged for goods from Spain, and the galleons left for Europe loaded with as much as 100 million dollars in treasure.

  It was difficult to imagine the harbor filled with galleons as La Tortuga churned the shallow muddy bottom looking for a place to get to shore. On either side ruins of old stone forts commanded the entrance, forts which the Spanish had thought were impregnable until pirates Parker and Morgan came along. Jutting into the bay was a crude wooden dock where some two dozen Negroes pointed in awe as we circled and pulled alongside. Helen jumped from the jeep to the dock and asked if there was a canoe landing. A young boy, his black naked body shiny from the gently falling rain, loped excitedly a few hundred feet to where a shingle slope ran up onshore. There were exclamations as La Tortuga surged from the sea and bumped over the stone walk, the first vehicle to enter Portobelo.

  With two or three hundred inhabitants, practically the whole population, hooting and skipping behind us as if we were the Pied Piper, we drove among tumbled ruins, over stone bridges, and under stone arches to the remains of the King’s Treasury, nothing but a few columns supporting the sky.

  In its heyday Portobelo had had four sections, Triana, Merced, Guinea, and the Shambles. Now the whole village was a shambles. The jungle had reclaimed everything: the growth was as luxuriant inside the walls as in the encroaching forest behind them. Attacked by pirates and plague, rendered valueless when the Incan treasures dwindled, what was left of the town became the heritage of the slaves who built it, the ancestors of the people who followed us. The alcalde, chief of the town, a slender graying Negro in white shirt and pants, welcomed us with a smile, and offered us food and a place to sleep. Thanking him, we asked to spend the night among the ruins of Fort Geronimo, at one end of the village. Except for what was left of three forts, the Treasury, and a church, Portobelo was a tin-roofed, wooden-fronted jumble of dilapidated hovels. The old gold trail was overgrown, but still visible. The walled slave mart was now the cemetery, and in the crumbling niches of the fort rusted cannon lay where they had fallen when fire destroyed their wooden mounts. When we parked the jeep by a watchtower in a corner of the old fort that overlooked the town, a vulture flapped into a nearby palm tree. With its wrinkled neck and bald head it looked as if it might have been there when William Parker had burned and sacked Portobelo in 1601. Dropping back to the buttress, the vulture looked on greedily while we prepared lunch. Its predecessors had feasted well when Henry Morgan had taken the town in 1668, killing and torturing almost all the inhabitants. It was an unhealthy place then—those the pirates left the fever got until the whole coast became known as the Graveyard of Spaniards. And of at least one famous Englishman. At the bottom of the serene bay lay a leaden casket with the remains of Sir Francis Drake, who had died of dysentery while on a raiding expedition.

  In the one remaining church the alcalde showed us the image that is reputed to have saved the town from a pestilence that ravaged the entire coast. In a glass case stood the Black Christ. Carved from dark brown wood, it was a life-size figure with sorrowful eyes turned skyward and forehead bloody under a crown of thorns. Though there are several stories as to the origin of the image, this is the one related to us by the alcalde:

  “In 1658 a ship carrying the Black Christ—a gift from Spain to a church in Cartagena—put in at Portobelo for water and supplies. Each time it tried to leave the harbor it was turned back by storms. After five attempts the captain ordered the statue thrown overboard believing that it preferred to stay in Portobelo. The people of the town rescued it and placed it here. Shortly thereafter a cholera epidemic devastated the coast; only Portobelo was spared.”

  The next morning, after going over the chart with a fisherman, we headed for Isla Grande, eleven miles away. (All distances in this stretch are in nautical miles.) The water was like a sheet of glass, a mirror reflecting the rocky coast and the broken overcast of the sky. In trying the outboard motor we found its gasoline consumption disappointing. With a top speed of only two knots it consumed over three gallons of fuel an hour as compared to the regular engine’s five knots with the same consumption. Nevertheless, it was comforting to have, and it would serve for the purpose intended, that of emergency power.

  At about h
alf throttle we cruised at three knots, Helen at the wheel, and Dinah asleep on the bunk, while I sat on the bow watching for shallows and rocks. Several miles out the sea broke hoary white over Salmedina Reef, and to our right waves lashed the jagged coast. Ahead the sky was blue, but behind us the horizon was grayed by a dark mass of clouds. Three hours after leaving Portobelo we sighted Isla Grande, a small hilly island with palms lining the silver sand spit of its eastern end. Progressively the water changed color from a Prussian blue to a deep green, and closer to shore it was emerald broken by splotches of mottled brown coral. Grateful there were no breakers, we cut the throttle and drifted in with just enough power to maintain steerageway. From the cab I couldn’t see the reefs below, so Helen stood on the bow and directed me. Without experience in judging the depth of the transparent water, we had a few frightening moments when the wheels bumped and the jeep tilted on the high points of coral. Then near the white sand I engaged the gears and stepped on the gas. With the front wheels at the water’s edge we bogged down, but deflating the tires gave us sufficient traction to climb onto our first island camp.

  The beach had been deserted when we approached, but by the time we were on solid ground it was swarming with excited children, their eyes and white teeth like beacons in their smiling black faces. Little girls filled Helen’s arms with fragrant bundles of tropical flowers, ginger, hibiscus, frangipani, and flor de india. Little boys twirled coconuts by their stems and offered them to me. Following the children came the adults and the alcalde of the island, another smiling friendly Negro who bid us welcome. More than caring where we had come from, they were just fascinated by our being there. They inspected the jeep from every angle, but soon the little boys lost interest in La Tortuga when they discovered that Dinah was an eager retriever of coconut husks. We’ve always doubted her pedigree—although it says German shepherd, I’m sure there must be a little water spaniel mixed in there somewhere.

  By the time the formalities were over it was three o’clock. Hungry when we arrived two hours before, by that time we were starved. The simple statement that Helen would like to bathe was enough to clear the beach, and after a refreshing swim in the crystal-clear water near the shore we set up camp under a low-hanging palm tree. Washing down the C rations with coconut milk, we sat on the sand and looked in the direction from which we had come. The air was still, the sea calm, but there was a purple hue in the sky.

  The rest of that afternoon we received a steady stream of visitors as the children returned with more flowers until La Tortuga was so bedecked she could have qualified for the Tournament of Roses as the service station attendant in Pasadena had thought. Returning from their small farms on the mainland a mile or so across the channel, men came to inspect the jeep, bringing us calabashes filled with mangoes, pineapples, bananas, and avocados. At their invitation we went to the village a half mile away. Led by a flock of children, we followed along a winding path through tall coconut palms, vine-covered trees, ferns, and large-leafed plants. At the village beach cayucas, or wooden dugout canoes, were pulled up on the sand, some filled with fruit, coconuts, fish, or lobsters. Built on stilts, the houses were of palm frond and cane, with bamboo ladders leading to the doorless entries. Underneath the huts were tied giant sea turtles, three feet across, while nearby were the shells of those that had gone before.

  Back at camp we had a supper of avocados, limes, and coconuts. Alone for the first time, we watched the sun set through a fan of palms. Feeling we had stumbled on a paradise, we weren’t anxious to leave, but with the chocosanos expected within a month, I set the alarm for an early departure. As in Costa Rica, we had been advised to travel only during the morning hours.

  Between scratching sand flea bites—there was a thorn on the rose—and listening to the thunder and the wail of the wind, we didn’t sleep too well that night. Early the next morning we looked through the window screens to see the same children peering from the undergrowth. As soon as they saw we were awake they came running to the jeep, their arms again filled with flowers. While I was checking over La Tortuga, the alcalde came carrying two green bamboo poles about fifteen feet long. He had heard me ask one of the young men if there was any bamboo around big enough to be used for poling over reefs and for determining the depth of the water. He had gone to the mainland that morning and cut them for us. We were to find those poles the most valuable navigational instruments we had.

  “I know you planned to leave this morning,” he said, “but until the change in the moon the sea will be rough.”

  “When will that be?” I asked.

  The alcalde shrugged. “Perhaps two days.”

  The sky was still threatening toward Colón, but ahead it was clear so we decided to go on. Waving good-by, we poled over the hedge of reef and headed into mid-channel between the island and the mainland. Nearing the end of the island, some two miles from the sand spit where we had camped, the jeep began to plunge its bow into the waves. With the sea covering the winch and steaming from the muffler, I closed all the hatches and started the bilge pump. Thinking it was just a rough turbulent area, we continued. We were heading for a rocky point about a mile away where the waves leaped high in the air like a reverse cataract. But beyond that point we would be in the lee of the mainland for a time, and if the weather didn’t clear we planned to take shelter in a cove on the other side. Once we were clear of the lee of Isla Grande, however, the wind swept unimpeded from the sea and the waves smashed against the port bow of the jeep, covering the windshield. La Tortuga was rolling heavily, and I headed her slightly into the wind, counting on tacking around the point. But the wind was too strong for her low power and square lines, and I quickly learned she had still another limitation. That was the first time it had been necessary to run the jeep at full throttle with all the hatches closed. The temperature gauge was climbing to the danger point. I knew we would never clear the point before the engine boiled.

  It was blowing harder all the time. Though I knew we couldn’t go on I hesitated to turn around. Broadside to the waves, the jeep heeled over in the troughs, yawed frighteningly, and then, with the wind pushing against her flat square stern, she fairly flew back to the island. We were barely ashore when the whole village flocked to us again. The alcalde warned against starting out when Hellsgate, the point we had been heading for, was frothing. That was the last time I ignored the advice of the natives. When a practice patrol flight flew over that afternoon, I warmed up the radio.

  “Hello, Angel, this is Turtle. We’ve had a change of plans. We’re staying put on Isla Grande until the local weather prophets say it’s okay to leave.”

  Not too disturbed at the prospect of spending another day or two on our island paradise, we set up a more permanent camp in preparation for the storm the alcalde said would accompany the change of the moon. Among the odd assortment of gear which we had accumulated was a large nylon tarpaulin, blue on one side and yellow on the other. A couple of pieces of driftwood for support turned the tarp into a fine shelter from the sun and an excellent rain catcher for drinking water. With the emerald sea lapping against the white sand beach not far from our feet we settled back in our “lanai” to wait, rather looking forward to the life of beachcombers.

  Like everyone else who had read Robinson Crusoe or Swiss Family Robinson, I had had romantic dreams of being on a tropical island, and Isla Grande was as perfect a spot as one could ask for. With our paratrooper stove set in a windbreak of sand, a bleached log to sit on, and a pile of coconuts to quench our thirst, we relaxed in the shade of the tarp, overwhelmed by a feeling of laziness. Except for the quick measured movements of sandpipers, the jetlike plunge of pelicans after fish, and the darting of crabs the whole atmosphere was one of indolence. The cayucas moved slowly over the waves, propelled with ease by black muscular arms; the beat of drums from the village across the channel had an unhurried quality; and it was even difficult to breathe rapidly when the sea took such long regular breaths. With a couple of books to read, a palm-edged beac
h to stroll, crystal water to swim in, and plenty of food we lived an idyllic existence for a few days.

  Sometimes we visited the village, but mostly the village visited us. From early morning our camp became a mecca for all the children. Life on a desert island that was not deserted had its complications—it became necessary to set the alarm to go off before dawn. Then, back in the jeep, we dozed until we heard the conch shell blowing, a long mournful sound like the bleating of a calf, notifying the islanders that a turtle had been caught in the traps offshore. But no matter how early that was, the children were waiting for us to stir. Always polite and considerate, they never came from the bushes until we climbed from the jeep, but from that moment they were with us until sunset.

  While everyone in the village paid a visit to our camp sometime during the day there was one group of children who were our constant companions. With no prompting by us two little girls took it upon themselves to keep us supplied with flowers, clean the jeep, and help Helen when she washed clothes. And there were three little boys who followed me about and kept us supplied with coconuts, shinnying like monkeys up the slender palm trunks. The boys, all between five and seven, wore no clothes at all, but the little girls, about the same age, wore simple cotton dresses and tied their kinky hair with bits of white cloth.

  While they enjoyed playing with Dinah, or watching us prepare meals and sharing the crackers and jam from our C rations, the big event of the day for the kids was wash time, be it dishes, clothes, or ourselves. The first time they saw us scrubbing in the sea their mouths opened in astonishment. Soap of any kind was scarce, but our special Navy soap that lathered in salt water was nothing short of magical to them. Offered a bar, they passed it around and worked their woolly heads into foam, covering their bodies until they looked like little snowmen. Then, with a froglike leap, they disappeared below the surface of the water, splashed about, and came up all smiles, asking for more. It was fortunate that we had a good supply.