Tragedy at sea, and an epic on the Reventezan
Two close friends, Conor Dempsey and Conor White, recently crewed a catamaran across the Atlantic from South Africa, but jumped ship in Trinidad due to a disagreement with the captain. Not long after they jumped ship, the catamaran was wrecked off the Oregon coast with a loss of all hands.
In the meantime, unaware of the tragic fate of their crewmates, the lads were boating in Costa Rica, where, probably a bit rusty after their transatlantic crossing, they had an epic on the the Reventezan. Here is Conor Dempsey’s first hand account of what happened next. It involved spending a night in the jungle with no food or survival gear:
“The day before yesterday we were running the Reventezan in huge water.
I fucked up my line and ended up in a monster hole. Tried everything I knew to get out but I was just getting the beat down. When I started to window shade really fast in the seam I decided it was time to pull the ripcord and get the hell out of there !! I went deep. The water was real brown due to all the rain so when I opened my eyes everything was black . I was just about running out of air when thinks started getting a bit brighter. Broke the surface and started whooping big gulps of air.
But I was by no means in the clear. Tom, an American dude we are paddling with, paddled over to me and I grabbed the back of his boat, he paddled like a madman for the eddy but we did not make it. I was heading off down into another class 5 rapid. I looked over my shoulder at a huge horizon line and I knew it was not going to be fun. I went deep through at least two more big holes before I came out at the bottom of the rapid.
At this stage I was beat, but I was not far from the eddy. I swam like crazy and got myself into the eddy. As I crossed the eddy line I could see my boat just washing out the bottom of the eddy, and my throw rope came into my hand. The rope was still attached to my boat. But If I held on I would get pulled out of the eddy again so I had no choice but to drop the line and head for shore.
Once ashore I pretty much collapsed and waited for the others to join me. The epic was however far from over. I was stuck on the bank of the river in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of the jungle. There was no obvious way out from the river and the bank walled out just shortly down stream from where I was. Not good.
Searching a bit further down stream we spotted a track further down the bank, however there was a huge cliff in the way. There was however an island in the bend on the river. The plan was to ferry me across to the island, hike across the island and ferry me across the river again to reach this track, so that perhaps I could hike out. After setting up rescue, and Conor and I hiking upstream to get plenty of room.
We broke out into the flow with me on the bow of the boat. We were just about to make it when Conor got flipped in a hole, he rolled landed in another flipped again, at this stage I let go and swam like crazy for shore. When I looked up Conor was just after swimming as he got stuck in a pourover. He managed to get in behind a rock, but we had to rope him ashore. Great!!
At this stage it was getting pretty late in the day and we decided the others should get going and Conor and I would overnight on the island. We had less than an hours light left. The others headed off down stream and
Conor and I set about making a bed to get us off the ground away from creepy crawlies and snakes. We constructed the bed out of rocks branches and a steel girder. We covered it with various foliage. After one hour of darkness the moon came up which gave us enough light to build a tent style roof over our heads with our paddles and a sling. We covered it with all kind of branches and leaves etc. It worked pretty good. We were off the ground, we were sheltered from most of the rain and we were kept a little warm.
It rained on and off and got pretty cold during the night. Most of the night consisted of one hour of fitful sleep, and one our of jumping jack and jogging on the spot to warm up, and repeat all night.
The next morning was cold, cloudy and rainy. The plan had been for Tom to organise a raft and some kayakers to come get us the next day, but we had no idea if they had got out or if he had succeeded in getting things organised. We prepared ourselves mentally for another night on the island and at least not to be picked up until late in the afternoon.
However we need not have worried. Tom had met Diego, who had organized a fantastic bunch of paddlers and a raft guide to come get us. They were up at 5.30 am and arrived on our Island at 9am, with coffee and breakfast . We were delighted to see them !!! After a bite to eat and some trading of stories we got in the raft and headed off in search of our kayaks. With incredible luck we found both the boats, which were in perfect nick !! We rafted the rest of the run which was still at a really high level. I had never been in a raft before but had a blast running the rest of the river. We were off the water and packed up by 12 pm - so we stopped at a bar on the way back and bought everyone guaro and many beers. We were baloobas by 2 pm.”
Pretty incredible stories, two close calls . Commiseration to the families of the crewmembers lost at sea.
January 16th, 2007 at 10:40 pm
thats mental, makes my corsica epic seem like a stroll in the park, glad to hear they were all ok!
February 10th, 2007 at 6:10 pm
Fine work
March 23rd, 2007 at 9:53 pm
Small world. My friend met the other Conor while traveling and heard this story, sounds absolutely wicked! Any recent adventures for the two of you?