Even equipped like that I could cover several miles a day in the nastiest scrub I’ve ever seen. I might be scratched a bit, but I could cover the ground in an emergency. And I’m no athlete.
Nonsense. As I said, I’ve bushwhacked through tropical forest many times. You can lose your bearings if its cloudy or at mid day but over a period of several days anyone of normal competence would be able to get their bearings from the sun. I know this from more than 40 years of first hand experience working in tropical forests around the world. When I go off trail and don’t have a compass I make sure to note where the sun is as a fail-safe for finding my way back. It’s really not that difficult. And you don’t need to go in an exact direction, just keep heading generally one way (within 180 degrees).
In tropical forests you can tell the direction of the sun by looking at the beams of light that shine through the gaps between leaves. But that wouldn’t be necessary in a forest as short as the one he was in because you could generally see the sun directly through the leaves. I also know this from first-hand experience.
It would be irrelevant in this case anyway since it didn’t matter much which direction he walked, as long as he walked in the same direction every day.
There’s an inconsistency there (not to mention special pleading). If the forest was a tough to get through as claimed, he shouldn’t have been able to get far and should have been found. If it wasn’t so tough to get through and he had gotten far from the group, he should have been able to cover more ground every day when he was lost.
Once again, it’s not hard to believe someone could be lost for a couple of days. Being lost for almost three weeks on such a small island is bizarre.
As I said, I am not questioning that he was actually lost for that time. It’s just that the scope of his incompetence really is mind-boggling. It really would be a much simpler explanation if he was actively trying not to be found. But as you say, a motive for this would be difficult to fathom, especially back in 1993 when the story would have gotten less attention than it does now due to the internet.
What I’d really like to see is a program called How Could You Be That Dumb? for stories like this one.
Headline states he had 4 fish, 1 crab, & 1 lizard & lost 40 lbs. In my experience, fish are found in water. Did he find a pond in the middle of the forest, because if it was a stream he could have followed that out. Even if it meandered the island (& by extension the forested part of the island) aren’t that big.
Or, did he catch them in the ocean & then go back into the woods at night? :rolleyes:
This article (well the free preview) states he lost “about 50 pounds”.
Is this like the story of the fish that got away that gets bigger & bigger w/ each telling of it?
A man should always know his limitations. Even though I grew up in Alaska and have been through numerous map-and-compass courses in the military and was taught basic survival skills, my sense of direction sucks ass. I could get lost in my front yard. Since I know my limitation in this regard, I never venture off beaten paths, regardless of temptation, unless I’m with a competent guide, like, say, my wife at Costco.
Cozumel, like the Yucatan, is made of limestone. This means that there would be little surface water and probably no permanent streams. (I could believe he would have trouble finding drinking water in this kind of terrain, but the articles don’t seem to mention thirst as one of his major problems.) Limestone erodes easily which would make the terrain more difficult to walk through, but not impassable.
The fact that he caught some fish implies that he made it to the coast, but it’s unclear how many days it took him to get there.
The Blue Land Crab in my experience is abundant on many Caribbean islands even away from the coast and they are considered good eating. They might have been less tasty uncooked but still they should have been a plentiful food source.
Another basic survival tactic if lost in the woods is to break branches and throw fresh leaves on the ground as you move along. This will enable you to see if you are returning to where you’ve been before, as well as enable searchers to follow you.
Everyone talks about food, but the real killer in survival situations is hypo|hyperthermia and dehydration.
What was this guy drinking for 3 weeks?
This story doesn’t add up.
There are plenty of places in the world where you can wander off the path, get turned around, and never be seen again. Cozumel doesn’t seem to be one of those places. I mean, sure, you could wander off and trip over a branch and smash your head open and then some hiker finds your picked skeleton a year or two later. Or fall into a cenote. But if you can walk, on Cozumel all you have to do is hit a beach, and then pick a direction.
The fact that he managed to get so far away from his group so quickly indicates he began in a cleared area with a path. How he managed to push deeper and deeper into thick undergrowth without realizing he must be going the wrong way is a mystery. Underground water is plentiful all over the region and there are openings to the underground springs all over the place. Falling into one of those openings is more likely to be a problem than going thirsty. If there was any rain at all which is pretty much a given in July it also pools in crevices in the above ground rocks which are everywhere.
As noted if he found the beach at all he was home free. He could walk the beach until he reached civilization no matter what sunlight or other signals he overlooked. If he got to the beach and then turned around and walked back into the jungle he was really trying for a Darwin award at that point.
It is fairly hostile terrain especially if he wasn’t prepared for it. Wearing boots and packing a machete it isn’t very difficult at all but I could see someone in flip flops and shorts getting really torn up with thorns and stung by all manner of insects. The fact is a small Mayan kid could walk right through there even wearing flip flops though. I would be much more worried about snakebites than getting lost.
My family is from the coast of Jalisco. The area shares the same rainy season as Cozumel. There are times during the rainy season, June through October, when it can be overcast for days at a time if there is a tropical weather formation near the coast.
A couple of days is not three weeks. Like I said, being lost for a couple of days wouldn’t be that strange. Being lost for nearly three weeks takes massive incompetence. And even when it’s overcast, the general direction of the sun can usually be told especially early in the morning and later in the afternoon. And that would be all you would need. He didn’t need to navigate an accurate course of 270 degrees, all he had to do was walk generally east or west.
At the height of the rainy season in Panama in October and November we can get drizzling rain and overcast skies for a few days in a row. But not more than that, and as I said you can normally at least tell which direction the sun is rising or setting even when it’s overcast.
“Not being able to see the sun” is no explanation for how the guy could have been lost for 19 or 20 days. “Not understanding how to walk in one direction using the sun as a guide” is.
