F. Schreider; Explored World by Land, Sea

Frank Schreider, an intrepid explorer who circumnavigated the globe retracing the routes of ancient seamen, has died.

His wife and co-adventurer, Helen, said this week he had died aboard his sloop Sassafras off Crete. He had been midway through a three-year voyage sailing the Aegean and Crete seas on his 40-foot boat.

Helen Schreider said this week she was planning to fly to Greece from their home in Santa Fe, N.M. to accompany him on the remainder of the voyage when she received word of his death of a heart attack Jan. 21. He was 70.

Formerly of Los Angeles, the Schreiders for three decades had sailed from the Arctic Circle to the tip of Tierra del Fuego, emulated the conquering journeys of Alexander the Great and traversed the length of the Indonesian Archipelago.

They also walked, sailed, canoed, rafted and motored down the entire 4,000 miles of the Amazon from its source in Peru.

From their travels came three books and countless articles in National Geographic, Saturday Evening Post and many other national and international publications.

To enable them to travel over water, Schreider made a floating jeep he called “La Tortuga” (The Turtle) from a World War II amphibious jeep. Sometimes traveling with their dogs, they made their way through jungles where there were no roads and motored across the surf of Panama to bridge the gaps in the Pan American Highway. They also passed into the Great Rift Valley of East Africa.

Their 18-month journey across the Strait of Magellan to Tierra del Fuego resulted in their first book, “Twenty Thousand Miles South,” serialized in the Post as “We Made the Impossible Trip.”

Frank Schreider, the photographer of the team, also produced a documentary based on that journey.

Their other books included “The Drums of Tonkin,” about their Indonesian venture and “Exploring the Amazon.” The Amazon adventure earned the Schreiders a spot in the Guinness Book of World Records for the “longest navigable journey.”

Schreider, a submariner in World War II, was a 1950 graduate of UCLA where he met his wife.