[SFDXA] TI9CF 1970 - How Not To Go On A DXPedition

[Bill]

(Full story with pictures)
http://hamgallery.com/qsl/country/Cocos_Island/ti9cf4.htm

TI9CF 1970 Cocos Island

The operators were Bernal Fonseca TI2BF (Brother of Carlos Fonseca 
TI2CF), Carlos TI2CAP, Carlos Manuel Fonseca TI2CMF (Carlos later 
changed his callsign to TI2CF, Jose TI2J (As I recall Jose went to 
Serrana Bank in 1971, Jim TI2USA (Jim was a Marine guard at the U.S. 
Embassy in 1970, Fernando TI2W, Don Blankenship K6JGS (today W4PUL), Joe 
Goggin K9KNW, Roger "Flip" Ries W9FIU, Wayne Warden W9IGW, now W9GW.

THIS IS A CLASSIC STORY OF
HOW NOT TO CONDUCT A DXPEDITION

The 1970 DXpedition group to Cocos Island almost cost the lives of all 
five Americans and about seven Costa Ricans. For the first time the 
story is told below.

The amateur radio group which eventually landed on Cocos operated only 
about 100 feet in from the shoreline at Chatham Bay. In 1970 the jungle 
growth was so thick down to the shoreline that it appeared impenetrable. 
Today it is completely cleared and there are open paths with wooden 
benches placed there by the Costa Rican Parks Authority.

When the 1970 DXpedition group landed on Cocos, they were utterly and 
completely exhausted following a dangerous storm ridden voyage from 
Puntarenas, Costa Rica. The passage in open seas during a terrible 
Pacific Ocean storm had completely exhausted the strength of the landing 
party. This fierce ocean storm almost sank their boat en route to Cocos 
the day earlier. This caused dangerous flooding of their chartered 
fishing vessel. Due to a faulty bilge pump, the tuna boat they used for 
the voyage actually began to sink in mid-ocean between Costa Rica and 
Cocos Island. This water pump became totally inoperative at a critical 
moment as the ship was taking on lots of water. It began to sink by 
mid-day following a storm the night before. After Roger Ries (W9FIU) 
made emergency repairs to the bilge pump the morning following the great 
storm, the boat then lumbered on to Cocos Island.

A second storm struck Cocos Island while the crew was landing and 
off-loading their equipment and before any food could be off-loaded to 
the island. The only dinghy bringing supplies and personnel to the 
island was demolished by the raging storm leaving the amateurs stranded 
ashore for four days with little or no food. The bottom of the dinghy 
was completely smashed after it was thrown upon the rocks on the small 
beach at Chatham Bay. With this as a backdrop you may understand why the 
amateur radio group was unable to consider any other options other than 
to try to operate close to the beach.

Due to the storm and the heavy cloud cover, the navigator was unable to 
get good star shots for his sextant readings. Plotting our course was 
done almost entirely with dead reckoning. Unfortunately, our course was 
very uncertain at best. So it is interesting and quite amazing that the 
island was located by using the pirate's method of dead reckoning. They 
also watched for frigate and other sea birds at daybreak as they flew 
outward from the island in radial flight to forage for food. The ship's 
captain then followed the reverse flight of the birds to find Cocos 
island. A very inexact science, but it worked for the old Spanish 
pirates and it worked for us as well. This was a DXpedition doomed to 
failure almost from the onset.

If there is something to be learned from this DXpedition fiasco in 1970, 
it is to only trust yourself and those who you have observed and tested. 
Simply put, you must only rely on the organizational and operational 
talents of people you know and absolutely trust. Also be assured that 
you have adequate funding for your expedition. In this particular case, 
the Americans along for this DXpedition were almost entirely at the 
mercy of their local hosts. One could say that the Americans were at 
fault for ever letting themselves be drawn into a situation of total 
trust of people they didn't even know and people who were primarily 
concerned with self interests. This reliance on others to do the 
planning and safeguard their lives while in a foreign country almost 
cost the Americans their lives when the boat almost sank. First among 
the most egregious abuses of confidence was when the Americans accepted 
a rickety old tuna boat to take them to Cocos Island from Puntarenas, 
Costa Rica. They also relied upon their hosts to provision the ship with 
supplies adequate for the four-day round trip voyage and subsequent stay 
on the island. DXpeditions require a tremendous effort to plan and 
execute. You don't simply travel to a remote location or foreign country 
and expect everything will neatly fall into place once you arrive. It 
simply won't. Murphy's law always prevails. Difficult or dangerous 
expeditions require extraordinary planning to assure they have a fair 
chance of success.

Because proper planning had not been done before the trip, the food 
supply for the expedition was woefully lacking. A quick dash by our 
local hosts to a corner grocery store in Puntarenas, Costa Rica, just 
before the ship sailed, represented what typified this unusual 
organizational plan. There were no shopping lists to buy adequate and 
appropriate provisions for the group. About three or four small 
cardboard boxes of tinned foods, such as sardines and mackerel, salt 
crackers, beans, rice and ketchup were purchased just hours before the 
voyage. This small amount of food was entirely inadequate to sustain the 
group over the duration of the round trip to Cocos Island. No questions 
had been asked of the Americans concerning what they would like to eat 
nor had any thought been given to how the food would be prepared. I 
recall mostly eating boiled rice with a tomato ketchup topping or sauce, 
with perhaps a spoon sized portion of sardine for most of the meals 
during the trip to and from the island. There was obvious discomfort 
because of the inadequate food portions and the lousy taste of the food 
itself. The mood among the Americans was one of anger for having been 
deceived by our hosts. However, we tried to be good guests and make the 
most of it because, after all, we were going to be operating from Cocos 
Island, a DX location relatively rare in 1970. Much of our pain and 
discomfort was simply tolerated and any manifestation of anger deferred 
until after the expedition was over. That is what mature grown men do in 
times of adversity. However, each of them promised that it would never 
happen to them again. Some of the group, such as K9KNW (Joe Goggin) and 
W9IGW (Wayne Warden) went on to complete several other DXpeditions 
including Juan Fernandez (CE0), San Felix CE0), Bajo Nuevo (HK0) and San 
Andres (HK0).

Once on the island, the situation was very bleak during the first 12 
hours. Tremendous storms brought lightning and thunder claps so loud, it 
was absolutely deafening through the thin walls of the tent. Shortly 
after our arrival, we managed to set up one tent before the worst of the 
storm hit. In spite of our careful efforts, the downfall of torrential 
rain filled the interior of an otherwise rainproof tent. Water on the 
floor of the tent was about 1 inch deep and we simply were unable to 
evacuate it. We therefore later fell asleep in the crowded tent with 
about an inch of water on the floor. It was cold and miserable and just 
about the very worst night anyone ever spend on one of these "so-called" 
DXpeditions. During the first night, the tumultuous winds from the storm 
and the ferocious ocean currents washed one of our generators out into 
water. The powerful wave action on the beach crashed the dinghy up and 
down upon the rocks such that by morning there was absolutely no bottom, 
only one big hole where a bottom used to be. The radio equipment had 
been wrapped in plastic but both generators had water damage and 
required extensive cleaning the following day. We were off to the very 
worst possible start one could imagine. We also had lost our small boat, 
our life line to the mother ship which waited for us out in the harbor. 
There was no way to transit between the tuna boat and the island. We 
were, for all intents and purposes "stranded on Cocos Island" and would 
remain so for the next four days. We had no contact with the other Costa 
Rican group that remained aboard the tuna boat. To them, it probably 
didn't matter very much because their gratuitous trip was to fish near 
Cocos Island. And.....the worst part of it was we all were 
hungry.....terribly hungry! However, for the Americans, the sole purpose 
of going to Cocos Island was only to operate their amateur radio 
equipment. So the fisherman aboard the tuna boat simply disappeared for 
a lengthy period of time and left the Americans and two Costa Rican 
amateurs on the island to fend for themselves.

During the following few days the amateurs were on the island, they 
managed to exist by eating the few precious treats that Flip (W9FIU) had 
stowed away as his personal supplies because of his finicky eating 
habits. Then when the weakness from famine began to seriously affect the 
group, Jose (TI2J) took his .22 cal. rifle out into the jungle growth 
and was able to bag a small deer. With this venison meat and a little 
bit of rice that had been brought along to the island, the amateurs were 
able to cook a proper meal and regain their strength. I also recall that 
later someone also rigged a fishing line of some sort and caught a few 
fish. Without these emergency measures taken to acquire food, the 
amateur radio group would have been in very serious circumstances as 
their health deteriorated.

As it turned out, about four days after the amateurs arrived on the 
island, a Nicaraguan fishing boat approached Cocos Island. They quickly 
were summoned by the tuna boat that brought us to the island. They were 
then asked to aid in our rescue if they could provide a small dinghy 
that could be used to extricate us from the island. They were told that 
our dinghy was now inoperable due to a bad storm. The Nicaraguan fishing 
vessel accommodated us and even provided a man to row a small boat back 
and forth from the island to the chartered boat. Using the small boat, 
we eventually were able to depart the island with all of the equipment 
we brought with us. In spite of all the bad luck and very poor planning, 
the amateur radio group was still able to make about 4,000 contacts from 
Cocos using the callsign TI9CF.

Don Blankenship K6JGS/W4PUL speaking with Wayne Warden W9IGW in San 
Jose, Costa Rica just before the launch of the expedition. In the 
background Jim TI2USA and Flip Ries W9FIU.

(Full story with pictures)
http://hamgallery.com/qsl/country/Cocos_Island/ti9cf4.htm