Not long after the commencement of the spring semester, 1932, various American university campuses saw the following posting by L. Ron Hubbard:

“Restless young men with wanderlust wanted for the Caribbean Motion Picture Expedition. Cost to applicant $250 payable at the dock in Baltimore before sailing. Must be healthy, dependable, resourceful, imaginative, and adventurous.”

Respondents were informed this Caribbean expedition would set sail aboard a motorless, four-masted schooner—one of the last of such sailing vessels. Furthermore, the adventure would involve the filming of pirate haunts for movie house newsreels, with projected ports of call including the islands of Bermuda, Martinique, St. Thomas, St. Croix, Jamaica and Puerto Rico. Also of interest to the expedition was “data concerning the terra and inhabitants of these little civilized islands,” as well as photographs from the rim of active volcanoes.

Admittedly, it was a bold plan. Mr. Hubbard himself described the expedition as audacious, and spoke of a dozen troublesome details and mishaps. For example, the first leagues were trying, with sail-shredding winds off the Chesapeake Bay and serious leaks in the water tanks. Likewise, through the course of the voyage the ship’s dour Captain Garfield proved himself far less than a Captain Courageous, requiring Ron Hubbard’s hand at both the helm and the charts.

Then there is the story of Mr. Hubbard’s ascent to the fiery mouth of Martinique’s Mount Pelée, for a very rare photographic vista. As he said in a radio broadcast from 1935:

“Great boulders weighing many tons began to roll, glowing and thundering down the slopes. It was necessary to dodge and dodge fast to keep from being mangled. I lost count of the narrow squeaks.... But I got down all right and I looked and felt like I’d been through the nether regions.”

Yet despite their eventual arrival in Puerto Rico, with unexpected towage costs, harbor fees, and a shredded foresail and flying jib, the expedition was not altogether unsuccessful. Case in point: expedition photographs of Mount Pelée were purchased by the New York Times and coral specimens from the Vieques Sound were acquired by the National Museum. While even some fifty years later, those who sailed with Mr. Hubbard in 1932 would still speak of that voyage as the one grand adventure in the twilight of their youth.