Mr. Tomohiro Okamoto, a now-retired official from the Maritime Department of Japan’s Ministry of Transport, recounts how he and his junior colleague, Mr. Atsuro Chiba, were in Long Beach, California, when they learned a lone survivor of the Japanese ship Tsimtsum had reportedly landed near Tomatlán, Mexico.

Ordered to contact the survivor, they bought a map and mistakenly set out for Tomatán in Baja California, confusing it with Tomatlán because of a map fold and small print. Realizing their error after driving eight hundred kilometres, Mr. Okamoto chose to continue south to Santa Rosalia, then take a late, slow ferry to Guaymas, and drive onward to Tomatlán.

The journey is plagued by bad roads, a flat tire, and repeated mechanical trouble, including a dishonest repair that leaves their rental car damaged and later breaking down again. A second mechanic overcharges them, and the men arrive exhausted at the Benito Juárez Infirmary in Tomatlán after forty-one hours of nonstop travel.

At the infirmary, Mr. Okamoto and Mr. Chiba interview Piscine Molitor Patel in English for nearly three hours and record the conversation. The narrator explains that what follows are excerpts from the verbatim transcript, provided with Mr. Okamoto’s permission and including translated sections originally spoken in Japanese.