This film, from the Jack Douglas TV series called “Across the 7 Seas”, presents the journey of sixteen men down the rapids of the Rio Grijalva in Mexico. The trip was headed by Jack Curry of Western River Expeditions of Salt Lake City, Utah, a pioneer in the raft trip industry. This would be the first traverse of the dangerous white-water rapids of the Rio Grijalva. The story is narrated by cameraman Bob Moran (:09). It took the men eleven days to cross the seventeen mile stretch of rapids (:32). The group first heads to Chiapas, Mexico (1:30) and the capital Tuxtla. The expedition arrives in the Tuxtla Gutierrez Airport and Jack is seen as the first men stepping from the plane (1:34). A marimba bands greets them (1:49). The objective for the following day was to conduct aerial reconnaissance of the river as they climb into a small plane (2:02). The Rio Grijalva cuts through the Sumidero Canyon (2:15). While the river’s length is 298 miles and most of it had been thoroughly mapped and explored, the most dangerous 17 miles had never been crossed by raft before (2:28). They were able to chart the first few miles of the rapids (3:07). A Western River Expedition truck had arrived a few weeks prior to deliver supplies and equipment (3:16). A beach outside of Tuxtla was to be there pushing off point (3:23). Men of the expedition are seen carrying the oar lock rig (3:30) and inflating the rubber rafts (3:53). Once inflated, the rafts weighed 900 lbs. (4:03). A helicopter arrives bringing the Governor of Chiapas in (4:19). The governor is pictured with news reporters from Tuxtla (4:33). The Mayor of Tuxtla presents one of the men with a rifle and ammunition (4:41). Men strap on life vests (5:08). As they begin to shove off into the waters (5:20), civilians crowd around to send them off. The expedition passes under the Chiapas De Corso lined with more spectators (5:42). They hit rapids on the first day (6:03). As a more dangerous section of rapids were to follow, they pulled ashore to make camp (6:29). This section is named Dead Horse Falls (7:09) after they found a horse’s skeleton nearby. This section was impassable due to it being followed immediately by another fall (7:27). They then had to line the boats past these rapids (7:36). Bob snaps photos of Paul’s Falls (7:47). Empty rafts move through the rapids (7:59) and one hits a rock losing it’s oar locking rig (8:16). Jack and Paul cross the stream in the smaller raft after picking Bob up (8:50) and the raft flips over (9:00). Jack latches onto a rock and pull himself ashore, Bob climbs atop the raft (9:15) and Paul had been carried over the waterfall and made the opposite shore (9:40). Paul received a gash on his forehead (9:45). He is patched up (9:51). The Crocodile raft was rendered useless (10:05) and they were forced to line the remaining rafts through Matterhorn Falls (10:26). They kept two men aboard this time and one is seen waving frantically for more line as the raft gets caught (10:30). The rest of the group pulls the raft ashore (10:37) and one man received a lengthy rope burn (10:37). The next day, they hit rapids which were dangerous though not impassable (11:46). The next section was again impassable (12:44) and they portage supplies by hand (12:44). One of the men with a swollen ankle is air lifted out by the helicopter which had been making routine checks on the expedition (13:22). Rainbow Rapids were fairly easy to cross (14:43). Rainbow beach (14:55) and Rainbow Waterfall are shown (15:29). A natural phenomenon is shown which resembles a tiny sky scrapper city made from the waterfall’s spray (15:50). Crocodile beach is seen with crocodile imprints on it (16:09). Lee’s Rapids (16:25) brought the crew through the Gorilla gorge (16:46). Slow motion footage follows (16:48). The waters calm briefly, (17:53) and they hit Fenstermaker Falls (18:03). The raft (18:38) and oarlock frame (18:44) are patched. Preston Falls is seen (19:48). After more rapids and portaging (20:48), they hit Dead End Rock (20:45) which had to be portaged through. This was the final obstacle (21:03) and signs of civilization such as cattle (21:24) and natives (21:28) follow. Natives lead them to the village of Chicoasen (22:07). Dr. Preston patches up the crew’s injuries (22:15) and the governor meets them in the village (22:27). They head back to Tuxtla (22:39). The governor hosts a reception (22:48). The film was produced by Bob Moran (25:02).

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