The Log From The Sea Of Cortez Part 7

We were awakened well before daylight by the voices of men paddling out for the day's fis.h.i.+ng, and it was with some relief that we pulled up our anchor and started out to continue the work we had come to do. The day was thick with haze, the sun came through it hot and unpleasant, and the water was oily and at the same time choppy. The sticky humidity was on us.

In about an hour we came to the j.a.panese fis.h.i.+ng fleet. There were six s.h.i.+ps doing the actual dredging while a large mother s.h.i.+p of at least 10,000 tons stood farther offsh.o.r.e at anchor. The dredge boats themselves were large, 150 to 175 feet, probably about 600 tons. There were twelve boats in the combined fleet including the mother s.h.i.+p, and they were doing a very systematic job, not only of taking every shrimp from the bottom, but every other living thing as well. They cruised slowly along in echelon with overlapping dredges, literally sc.r.a.ping the bottom clean. Any animal which escaped must have been very fast indeed, for not even the sharks got away. Why the Mexican government should have permitted the complete destruction of a valuable food supply is one of those mysteries which have their ramifications possibly back in pockets it is not well to look into.

We wished to go aboard one of the dredge boats. Tony put the Western Flyer ahead of one of them, and we dropped the skiff over the side and got into it. It was not a friendly crew that looked at us over the side of the iron dredge boat. We clung to the side, almost swamping the skiff, and pa.s.sed our letter from the Ministry of Marine aboard. Then we hung on and waited. We could see the Mexican official on the bridge reading our letter. And then suddenly the atmosphere changed to one of extreme friendliness. We were helped aboard and our skiff was tied alongside.

The cutting deck was forward, and the great dredge loads were dumped on this deck. Along one side there was a long cutting table where the shrimps were beheaded and dropped into a chute, whether to be immediately iced or canned, we do not know. But probably they were canned on the mother s.h.i.+p. The dredge was out when we came aboard, but soon the cable drums began to turn, bringing in the heavy purse-dredge. The big sc.r.a.per closed like a sack as it came up, and finally it deposited many tons of animals on the deck-tons of shrimps, but also tons of fish of many varieties: sierras; pompano of several species; of the sharks, smooth-hounds and hammer-heads; eagle rays and b.u.t.terfly rays; small tuna; catfish; puerco puerco-tons of them. And there were bottom-samples with anemones and gra.s.s-like gorgonians. The sea bottom must have been sc.r.a.ped completely clean. The moment the net dropped open and spilled this ma.s.s of living things on the deck, the crew of j.a.panese went to work. Fish were thrown overboard immediately, and only the shrimps kept. The sea was littered with dead fish, and the gulls swarmed about eating them. Nearly all the fish were in a dying condition, and only a few recovered. The waste of this good food supply was appalling, and it was strange that the j.a.panese, who are usually so saving, should have done it. The shrimps were shoveled into baskets and delivered to the cutting table. Meanwhile the dredge had gone back to work.

With the captain's permission, we picked out several representatives of every fish and animal we saw. A stay of several days on the boat would have been the basis of a great and complete collection of every animal living at this depth. Even going over two dredgeloads gave us many species. The crew, part Mexican and part j.a.panese, felt so much better about us by now that they brought out their treasures and gave them to us: bright-red sea-horses and brilliant sea-fans and giant shrimps. They presented them to us, the rarities, the curios which had caught their attention.

At intervals a high, chanting cry arose from the side of the s.h.i.+p and was taken up and chanted back from the bridge. From the upper deck a slung cat-walk extended, and on it the leadsman stood, swinging his leadline, bringing it up and swinging it out again. And every time he read the markers he chanted the depth in j.a.panese in a high falsetto, and his cry was repeated by the helmsman.

We went up on the bridge, and as we pa.s.sed this leadsman he said, "h.e.l.lo." We stopped and talked to him a few moments before we realized that that was the only English word he knew. The j.a.panese captain was formal, but very courteous. He spoke neither Spanish nor English; his business must all have been done through an interpreter. The Mexican fish and game official stationed aboard was a pleasant man, but he said that he had no great information about the animals he was overseeing. The large shrimps were Penaeus Penaeus stylirostris, stylirostris, and one small specimen was and one small specimen was P. californiensis. P. californiensis.

The shrimps inspected all had the ovaries distended and apparently, as with the Canadian Pandalus, Pandalus, this shrimp had the male-female succession. That is, all the animals are born male, but all become females on pa.s.sing a certain age. The fish and game man seemed very eager to know more about his field, and we promised to send him Schmitt's fine volume on this shrimp had the male-female succession. That is, all the animals are born male, but all become females on pa.s.sing a certain age. The fish and game man seemed very eager to know more about his field, and we promised to send him Schmitt's fine volume on Marine Decapod Crustacea Marine Decapod Crustacea of of California California and whatever other publications on shrimps we could find. and whatever other publications on shrimps we could find.

We liked the people on this boat very much. They were good men, but they were caught in a large destructive machine, good men doing a bad thing. With their many and large boats, with their industry and efficiency, but most of all with their intense energy, these j.a.panese will obviously soon clean out the shrimps of the region. And it is not true that a species thus attacked comes back. The disturbed balance often gives a new species ascendancy and destroys forever the old relations.h.i.+p.

In addition to the shrimps, these boats kill and waste many hundred of tons of fish every day, a great deal of which is sorely needed for food. Perhaps the Ministry of Marine had not realized at that time that one of the good and strong food resources of Mexico was being depleted. If it has not already been done, catch limits should be imposed, and it should not be permitted that the region be so intensely combed. Among other things, the careful study of this area should be undertaken so that its potential could be understood and the catch maintained in balance with the supply. Then there might be shrimps available indefinitely. If this is not done, a very short time will see the end of the shrimp industry in Mexico.

We in the United States have done so much to destroy our own resources, our timber, our land, our fishes, that we should be taken as a horrible example and our methods avoided by any government and people enlightened enough to envision a continuing economy. With our own resources we have been prodigal, and our country will not soon lose the scars of our grasping stupidity. But here, with the shrimp industry, we see a conflict of nations, of ideologies, and of organisms. The units of the organisms are good people. Perhaps we might find a parallel in a moving-picture company such as Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. The units are superb-great craftsmen, fine directors, the best actors in the profession-and yet due to some overlying expediency, some impure or decaying quality, the product of these good units is sometimes vicious, sometimes stupid, sometimes inept, and never as good as the men who make it. The Mexican official and the j.a.panese captain were both good men, but by their a.s.sociation in a project directed honestly or dishonestly by forces behind and above them, they were committing a true crime against nature and against the immediate welfare of Mexico and the eventual welfare of the whole human species.

The crew helped us back into our skiff, handed our buckets of specimens down to us, and cast us off. And Tony, who had been cruising slowly about, picked us up in the Western Flyer. We had taken perhaps a dozen pompano as specimens when hundreds were available. Sparky was speechless with rage that we had brought none back to eat, but we had forgotten that. We set our course southward toward Estero de la Luna-a great inland sea, the borders of which were dotted lines on our maps. Here we expected to find a rich estuary fauna. In the scoop between Cape Arco and Point Lobos there is a fairly shallow sea which makes a deep ground-swell. It was Tiny up forward who noticed the great numbers of manta rays and suggested that we hunt them. They were monsters, sometimes twelve feet between the "wing" tips. We had no proper equipment, but finally we rigged one of the arrow-tipped harpoons on a light line. This harpoon was a five-inch bronze arrow slotted on an iron shaft. After the stroke, the arrow turns sideways in the flesh and the shaft comes out and floats on its wooden handle. The line is fastened to the arrow itself.

The huge rays cruised slowly about, the upturned tips of the wings out of water. Sparky went to the crow's-nest, where he could look down into the water and direct the steersman. A hundred feet from one of the great fish we cut the engine and coasted down on it. It lay still on the water. Tiny poised prettily on the bow. When we were right on it, he drove the harpoon into it. The monster did not flurry, it simply faded for the bottom. The line whistled out to its limit, tw.a.n.ged like a violin string, and parted. A curious excitement ran through the boat. Tex came down and brought out a one-and-one-half-inch hemp line. He ringed this into a new harpoon-head, and again Tiny took up his position, so excited that he had his foot in a bight of the line. Luckily, we noticed this and warned him. We coasted up to another ray-Tiny missed the stroke. Another, and he missed again. The third time, his arrow drove home, the line sang out again, two hundred feet of it. Then it came to the end where it was looped over a bitt, vibrated for a moment, and parted. The breaking strain of this rope was enormous. But we were doing it all wrong and we knew it. A ton and a half of speeding fish is not to be brought up short. We should have thrown a keg overboard with the line and let the fish fight the keg's buoyancy until exhausted. But we were not equipped. Tiny was almost hysterical by this time. Tex brought a three-inch line with an extremely high breaking strain. We had no more arrow harpoons. Tex made his hawser fast to a huge trident spear. When he finished, the a.s.sembly was so heavy that one man could hardly lift it. This time, Tex took the harpoon. He did not waste his time with careless strokes; he waited until the bow was right over one of the largest rays, then drove his spear down with all his strength. The heavy hawser ran almost smoking over the rail. Then it came to the bitt and struck with a kind of groaning cry, quivered, and went limp. When we pulled the big harpoon aboard, there was a chunk of flesh on it. Tiny was heart-broken. The wind came up now and so ruffled the water that we could not see the coasting monsters any more. We tried to soothe Tiny.

"What could we do with one if we caught it?" we asked.

Tiny said, "I'd like to pull it up with the boom and hang it right over the hatch."

"But what could you do with it?"

"I'd hang it there," he said, "and I'd have my picture taken with it. They won't believe in Monterey I speared one unless I can prove it. "

He mourned for a long time our lack of foresight in failing to bring manta ray equipment. Late into the night Tex worked, making with file and emery stone a new arrow harpoon, but one of great size. This he planned to use with his three-inch hawser. He said the rope would hold fifteen to twenty tons, and this arrow would not pull out. But he never had a chance to prove it; we did not see the rays in numbers any more.

We came to anchorage that night south of Lobos light and about five miles from the entrance to Estero de la Luna. In this shallow water Tony did not like to go closer for fear of stranding. It was a strange and frightening night, and no one knew why. The water was gla.s.sy again and the deck soaked with humidity. We had a curious feeling that a stranger was aboard, some presence not seen but felt, a dark-cloaked person who was with us. We were all nervous and irritable and frightened, but we could not find what frightened us. Tex worked on the Sea-Cow and got it to running perfectly, for we wanted to use it on the long run ash.o.r.e in the morning. We had checked the tides in Guaymas; it was necessary to leave before daylight to get into the estuary for the low tide. In the night, one of us had a nightmare and shouted for help and the rest of us were sleepless. In the darkness of the early morning, only two of us got up. We dressed quietly and got our breakfast. The light on Lobos Point was flas.h.i.+ng to the north of us. The decks were soaked with dew. Climbing down to the skiff, one of us fell and wrenched his leg. True to form, the Sea-Cow would not start. We set off rowing toward the barely visible sh.o.r.e, fixing our course by Lobos Light. A little feathery white shape drifted over the water and it was joined by another and another, and very soon a dense white fog covered us. The Western Flyer Western Flyer was lost and the sh.o.r.e blotted out. With the last flas.h.i.+ng of the Lobos light we tried to judge the direction of the swell to steer by, and then the light was gone and we were cut off in this ominous gla.s.sy water. The air turned steel-gray with the dawn, and the fog was so thick that we could not see fifteen feet from the boat. We rowed on, remembering to quarter on the direction of the swells. And then we heard a little vicious hissing as of millions of snakes, and we both said, "It's the was lost and the sh.o.r.e blotted out. With the last flas.h.i.+ng of the Lobos light we tried to judge the direction of the swell to steer by, and then the light was gone and we were cut off in this ominous gla.s.sy water. The air turned steel-gray with the dawn, and the fog was so thick that we could not see fifteen feet from the boat. We rowed on, remembering to quarter on the direction of the swells. And then we heard a little vicious hissing as of millions of snakes, and we both said, "It's the cordonazo." cordonazo." This is a quick fierce storm which has destroyed more s.h.i.+ps than any other. The wind blows so that it clips the water. We were afraid for a moment, very much afraid, for in the fog, the This is a quick fierce storm which has destroyed more s.h.i.+ps than any other. The wind blows so that it clips the water. We were afraid for a moment, very much afraid, for in the fog, the cordonazo cordonazo would drive our little skiff out into the Gulf and swamp it. We could see nothing and the hissing grew louder and had almost reached us. would drive our little skiff out into the Gulf and swamp it. We could see nothing and the hissing grew louder and had almost reached us.

It seems to be this way in a time of danger. A little chill of terror runs up the spine and a kind of nausea comes into the throat. And then that disappears into a kind of dull "what the h.e.l.l" feeling. Perhaps this is the working of some mind-to-gland-to-body process. Perhaps some shock therapy takes control. But our fear was past now, and we braced ourselves to steady the boat against the impact of the expected wind. And at that moment the bow of the skiff grounded gently, for it was not wind at all that hissed, but little waves was.h.i.+ng strongly over an exposed sand-bar. We climbed out, hauled the boat up, and sat for a moment on the beach. We had been badly frightened, there is no doubt of it. Even the sleepy dullness which follows the adrenal drunkenness was there. And while we sat there, the fog lifted, and in the morning light we could see the Western Flyer Western Flyer at anchor offsh.o.r.e, and we had landed only about a quarter of a mile from where we had intended. The sun broke clear now, and true to form when there was neither danger nor much work the Sea-Cow started easily and we rounded the sand-hill entrance of the big estuary. Now that the sun was up, we could see why there were dotted lines on the maps to indicate the borders of the at anchor offsh.o.r.e, and we had landed only about a quarter of a mile from where we had intended. The sun broke clear now, and true to form when there was neither danger nor much work the Sea-Cow started easily and we rounded the sand-hill entrance of the big estuary. Now that the sun was up, we could see why there were dotted lines on the maps to indicate the borders of the estero. estero. It was endless-there were no borders. The mirage shook the horizon and draped it with haze, distorted shapes, twisted mountains, and made even the bushes seem to hang in the air. Until every foot of such a sh.o.r.e is covered and measured, the shape and extent of these estuaries will not be known. It was endless-there were no borders. The mirage shook the horizon and draped it with haze, distorted shapes, twisted mountains, and made even the bushes seem to hang in the air. Until every foot of such a sh.o.r.e is covered and measured, the shape and extent of these estuaries will not be known.

Inside the entrance of the estuary a big canoe was anch.o.r.ed and four Indians were coming ash.o.r.e from the night's fis.h.i.+ng. They were sullen and unsmiling, and they grunted when we spoke to them. In their boat they had great thick mullet-like fish, so large that it took two men to carry each fish. They must have weighed sixty to one hundred pounds each. These Indians carried the fish through an opening in the brush to a camp of which we could see only the smoke rising, and they were definitely unfriendly. It was the first experience of this kind we had had in the Gulf. It wasn't that they didn't like us us-they didn't seem to like each other.

The tide was going down in the estuary, making a boiling current in the entrance. Biologically, the area seemed fairly sterile. There were numbers of small animals, several species of large snails and a number of small ones. There were burrowing anemones79 with transparent, almost colorless tentacles spread out on the sand bottom. And there were the flower-like with transparent, almost colorless tentacles spread out on the sand bottom. And there were the flower-like Cerianthus Cerianthus in sand-tubes everywhere. On the bottom were millions of minute sand dollars of a new type, brilliant light green and having holes and fairly elongate spines. Farther inside the estuary we took a number of small heart-urchins and a very few larger ones. On the sand bottoms there were large burrows, but dig as we would, we could never find the owners. They were either very quick or very deep, but even under water their burrows were always open and piles of debris lay about the entrances. Some large crustacean, we thought, possibly of the fiddler crab clan. in sand-tubes everywhere. On the bottom were millions of minute sand dollars of a new type, brilliant light green and having holes and fairly elongate spines. Farther inside the estuary we took a number of small heart-urchins and a very few larger ones. On the sand bottoms there were large burrows, but dig as we would, we could never find the owners. They were either very quick or very deep, but even under water their burrows were always open and piles of debris lay about the entrances. Some large crustacean, we thought, possibly of the fiddler crab clan.

The commonest animal of all was the enteropneust, an "acorn-tongued" worm presumably about three feet long that we had found at San Lucas Cove and at Angeles Bay. There were hundreds of their sand-castings lying about. We were not convinced that with all our digging we had got the whole animal even once (and the specialist subsequently confirmed our opinion with regret!).

Deep in the estuary we took several large beautifully striped Tivela-like Tivela-like clams and a great number of flat pearly clams. There were hundreds of large hermit crabs in various large gastropod sh.e.l.ls. We found a single long-armed sand-burrowing brittle-star which turned out to be clams and a great number of flat pearly clams. There were hundreds of large hermit crabs in various large gastropod sh.e.l.ls. We found a single long-armed sand-burrowing brittle-star which turned out to be Ophiophragmus marginatus, Ophiophragmus marginatus, and our listing of it is the only report on record since Lutken, in Denmark, erected the species from Nicaraguan material nearly a hundred years ago. In the uneasy footing of the sand, every stick and large sh.e.l.l and rock was encrusted with barnacles; even one giant swimming crab carried a load of barnacles on his back. and our listing of it is the only report on record since Lutken, in Denmark, erected the species from Nicaraguan material nearly a hundred years ago. In the uneasy footing of the sand, every stick and large sh.e.l.l and rock was encrusted with barnacles; even one giant swimming crab carried a load of barnacles on his back.

The wind had been rising a little as we collected, rippling the water. We cruised about in the shallows trying to see the bottom. There were great numbers of sand sharks darting about, but the bottom was clean and sterile and not at all as well populated as we would have supposed. The mirage grew more and more crazy. Perhaps these sullen Indians were bewildered in such an uncertain world where nothing half a mile away could maintain its shape or size, where the world floated and trembled and flowed in dream forms. And perhaps the reverse is true. Maybe these Indians dream of a hard sharp dependable world as an opposite of their daily vision.

We had not taken riches in this place. When the tide turned we started back for the Western Flyer. Western Flyer. Perhaps the Sea-Cow too had been frightened that morning, for it ran steadily. But the tide was so strong that we had to help it with the oars or it would not have been able to hold its own against the current. It took two hours of oars and motor to get back to the Perhaps the Sea-Cow too had been frightened that morning, for it ran steadily. But the tide was so strong that we had to help it with the oars or it would not have been able to hold its own against the current. It took two hours of oars and motor to get back to the Western Flyer. Western Flyer.

We felt that this had not been a good nor a friendly place. Some quality of evil hung over it and infected us. We were not at all sorry to leave it. Everyone on board was quiet and uneasy until we pulled up the anchor and started south for Agiabampo, which was, we thought, to be our last collecting station.

It was curious about this Estero de la Luna. It had been a bad place-bad feelings, bad dreams, and little accidents. The look and feel of it were bad. It would be interesting to know whether others have found it so. We have thought how places are able to evoke moods, how color and line in a picture may capture and warp us to a pattern the painter intended. If to color and line in accidental juxtaposition there should be added odor and temperature and all these in some jangling relations.h.i.+p, then we might catch from this accident the unease we felt in the estero. estero. There is a stretch of coast country below Monterey which affects all sensitive people profoundly, and if they try to describe their feeling they almost invariably do so in musical terms, in the language of symphonic music. And perhaps here the mind and the nerves are true indices of the reality neither segregated nor understood on an intellectual level. Boodin remarks the essential n.o.bility of philosophy and how it has fallen into disrepute. "Somehow," he says, "the laws of thought must be the laws of things if we are going to attempt a science of reality. Thought and things are part of one evolving matrix, and cannot ultimately conflict." There is a stretch of coast country below Monterey which affects all sensitive people profoundly, and if they try to describe their feeling they almost invariably do so in musical terms, in the language of symphonic music. And perhaps here the mind and the nerves are true indices of the reality neither segregated nor understood on an intellectual level. Boodin remarks the essential n.o.bility of philosophy and how it has fallen into disrepute. "Somehow," he says, "the laws of thought must be the laws of things if we are going to attempt a science of reality. Thought and things are part of one evolving matrix, and cannot ultimately conflict."80 And in a unified-field hypothesis, or in life, which is a unified field of reality, everything is an index of everything else. And the truth of mind and the way mind is must be an index of things, the way things are, however much one may stand against the other as an index of the second or irregular order, rather than as a harmonic or first-order index. These two types of indices may be compared to the two types of waves, for indices are symbols as primitive as waves. The first wave-type is the regular or cosine wave, such as tide or undulations of light or sound or other energy, especially where the output is steady and unmixed. These waves may be progressive-increasing or diminis.h.i.+ng-or they can seem to be stationary, although deeply some change or progression may be found in all oscillation. All terms of a series must be influenced by the torsion of the first term and by the torsion of the end, or change, or stoppage of the series. Such waves as these may be predictable as the tide is. The second type, the irregular for the while, such as graphs of rainfall in a given region, falls into means which are the functions of the length of time during which observations have been made. These are unpredictable individually; that is, one cannot say that it will rain or not rain tomorrow, but in ten years one can predict a certain amount of rainfall and the season of it. And to this secondary type mind might be close by hinge and "key-in" indices.

We had had many discussions at the galley table and there had been many honest attempts to understand each other's thinking. There are several kinds of reception possible. There is the mind which lies in wait with traps for flaws, so set that it may miss, through not grasping it, a soundness. There is a second which is not reception at all, but blind flight because of laziness, or because some pattern is disturbed by the processes of the discussion. The best reception of all is that which is easy and relaxed, which says in effect, "Let me absorb this thing. Let me try to understand it without private barriers. When I have understood what you are saying, only then will I subject it to my own scrutiny and my own criticism." This is the finest of all critical approaches and the rarest.

The smallest and meanest of all is that which, being frightened or outraged by thinking outside or beyond its pattern, revenges itself senselessly; leaps on a misspelled word or a misp.r.o.nunciation, drags tricky definition in by the scruff of the neck, and, ranging like a small unpleasant dog, rags and tears the structure to shreds. We have known a critic to base a vicious criticism on a misplaced letter in a word, when actually he was venting rage on an idea he hated. These are the suspicious ones, the self-protective ones, living lives of difficult defense, insuring themselves against folly with folly-stubbornly self-protective at too high a cost.

Ideas are not dangerous unless they find seeding place in some earth more profound than the mind. Leaders and would-be leaders are so afraid that the idea idea "communism" or the "communism" or the idea idea "Fascism" may lead to revolt, when actually they are ineffective without the black earth of discontent to grow in. The strike-raddled business-man may lean toward strikeless Fascism, forgetting that it also eliminates him. The rebel may yearn violently for the freedom from capitalist domination expected in a workers' state, and ignore the fact that such a state is free from rebels. In each case the idea is dangerous only when planted in unease and disquietude. But being so planted, growing in such earth, it ceases to be idea and becomes emotion and then religion. Then, as in most things teleologically approached, the wrong end of the animal is attacked. Lucretius, striking at the teleology of his time, was not so far from us. "I shall untangle by what power the steersman nature guides the sun's courses, and the meanderings of the moon, lest we, percase, should fancy that of own free will they circle their perennial courses round, timing their motions for increase of crops and living creatures, or lest we should think they roll along by any plan of G.o.ds. For even those men who have learned full well that G.o.dheads lead a long life free of care, if yet meanwhile they wonder by what plans things can go on (and chiefly yon high things observed o'erhead on the ethereal coasts), again are hurried back unto the fears of old religion and adopt again harsh masters, deemed almighty,-wretched men, unwitting what can be and what cannot, and by what law to each its scope prescribed, its boundary stone that clings so deep in Time." "Fascism" may lead to revolt, when actually they are ineffective without the black earth of discontent to grow in. The strike-raddled business-man may lean toward strikeless Fascism, forgetting that it also eliminates him. The rebel may yearn violently for the freedom from capitalist domination expected in a workers' state, and ignore the fact that such a state is free from rebels. In each case the idea is dangerous only when planted in unease and disquietude. But being so planted, growing in such earth, it ceases to be idea and becomes emotion and then religion. Then, as in most things teleologically approached, the wrong end of the animal is attacked. Lucretius, striking at the teleology of his time, was not so far from us. "I shall untangle by what power the steersman nature guides the sun's courses, and the meanderings of the moon, lest we, percase, should fancy that of own free will they circle their perennial courses round, timing their motions for increase of crops and living creatures, or lest we should think they roll along by any plan of G.o.ds. For even those men who have learned full well that G.o.dheads lead a long life free of care, if yet meanwhile they wonder by what plans things can go on (and chiefly yon high things observed o'erhead on the ethereal coasts), again are hurried back unto the fears of old religion and adopt again harsh masters, deemed almighty,-wretched men, unwitting what can be and what cannot, and by what law to each its scope prescribed, its boundary stone that clings so deep in Time."81

In the afternoon we sailed down the coast carefully, for the sand-bars were many and some of them uncharted. It was a shallow sea again, and the blueness of deep water had changed to the gray-greenof sand and shallows. Again we saw manta rays, but not on the surface this day, and the hunt had gone out of us. Tex did not even get out his new harpoon. Perhaps the crew were homesick now. They had seen Guaymas, they were bloated with stories, and they wanted to get back to Monterey to tell them. We would stop at no more towns, see no more people. The inland water of Agiabampo was our last stop, and then quickly home. The sh.o.r.e was low and hot and humid, covered with brush and mangroves. The sea was sterile, or populated with sharks and rays. No algae adhered to the sand bottom, and we were sad in this place after the booming life of the other side. We sailed all afternoon and it was evening when we came to anchorage five miles offsh.o.r.e in the safety of deeper water. We would edge in with the leadline in the morning.

28.

APRIL 11.

At ten o'clock we moved toward the northern side of the entrance of Agiabampo estuary. The sand-bars were already beginning to show with the lowering tide. Tiny used the leadline on the bow while Sparky was again on the crow's-nest where he could watch for the shallow water. Tony would not approach closer than a mile from the entrance, leaving as always a margin of safety.

When we anch.o.r.ed, five of us got into the little skiff, filling it completely. Any rough water would have swamped us. Sparky and Tiny rowed us in, competing violently with each other, which gave a curious twisting course to the boat.

Agiabampo is a great lagoon with a narrow seaward entrance. There is a little town ten miles in on the northern sh.o.r.e which we did not even try to reach. The entrance is intricate and obstructed with many shoals and sand-bars. It would be difficult without local knowledge to bring in a boat of any draft. We moved in around the northern sh.o.r.e; there were dense thickets of mangrove with little river-like entrances winding away into them. We saw great expanses of sand flat and the first extensive growth of eel-gra.s.s we had found.82 But the eel-gra.s.s, which ordinarily shelters a great variety of animal life, was here not very rich at all. We saw the depressions where But the eel-gra.s.s, which ordinarily shelters a great variety of animal life, was here not very rich at all. We saw the depressions where botete, botete, the poison fish, lay. And there were great numbers of sting-rays, which made us walk very carefully, even in rubber boots, for a slash with the tail-thorn of a sting-ray can easily pierce a boot. the poison fish, lay. And there were great numbers of sting-rays, which made us walk very carefully, even in rubber boots, for a slash with the tail-thorn of a sting-ray can easily pierce a boot.

The sand banks near the entrance were deeply cut by currents. High in the intertidal many grapsoid crabs83 lived in slanting burrows about eighteen inches deep. There were a great many of the huge stalk-eyed conchs and the inevitable big hermit crabs living in the cast-off conch sh.e.l.ls. Farther in, there were numbers of lived in slanting burrows about eighteen inches deep. There were a great many of the huge stalk-eyed conchs and the inevitable big hermit crabs living in the cast-off conch sh.e.l.ls. Farther in, there were numbers of Chione Chione and the blue-clawed swimming crabs. They seemed even cleverer and fiercer here than at other places. Some of the eel-gra.s.s was s.e.xually mature, and we took it for identification. On this gra.s.s there were cl.u.s.ters of snail eggs, but we saw none of the snails that had laid them. We found one scale-worm, and the blue-clawed swimming crabs. They seemed even cleverer and fiercer here than at other places. Some of the eel-gra.s.s was s.e.xually mature, and we took it for identification. On this gra.s.s there were cl.u.s.ters of snail eggs, but we saw none of the snails that had laid them. We found one scale-worm,84 a magnificent specimen in a a magnificent specimen in a Cerianthus-like Cerianthus-like tube. There were great numbers of tube-worms in the sand. The wind was light or absent while we collected, and we could see the bottom everywhere. On the exposed sand-bars birds were feeding in mult.i.tudes, possibly on the tube-worms. Along the sh.o.r.e, oyster-catchers hunted the burrowing crabs, diving at them as they sat at the entrances of their houses. It was not a difficult collecting station; the pattern, except for the eel-gra.s.s, was by now familiar to us although undoubtedly there were many things we did not see. Perhaps our eyes were tired with too much looking. tube. There were great numbers of tube-worms in the sand. The wind was light or absent while we collected, and we could see the bottom everywhere. On the exposed sand-bars birds were feeding in mult.i.tudes, possibly on the tube-worms. Along the sh.o.r.e, oyster-catchers hunted the burrowing crabs, diving at them as they sat at the entrances of their houses. It was not a difficult collecting station; the pattern, except for the eel-gra.s.s, was by now familiar to us although undoubtedly there were many things we did not see. Perhaps our eyes were tired with too much looking.

As soon as the tide began its strong ebb we got into the skiff and started back to the Western Flyer. Western Flyer. Collecting in narrow-mouthed estuaries, we are always wrong with the currents, for we come in against an ebbing tide and we go out against the flow. It was heavy work to defeat this current. The Sea-Cow gave us a hand and we rowed strenuously to get outside. Collecting in narrow-mouthed estuaries, we are always wrong with the currents, for we come in against an ebbing tide and we go out against the flow. It was heavy work to defeat this current. The Sea-Cow gave us a hand and we rowed strenuously to get outside.

That night we intended to run across the Gulf and start for home. It was good to be running at night again, easier to sleep with the engine beating. Tiny at the wheel inveighed against the waste of fish by the j.a.panese. To him it was a waste complete, a loss of something. We discussed the widening and narrowing picture. To Tiny the fisherman, having as his function not only the catching of fish but the presumption that they would be eaten by humans, the j.a.panese were wasteful. And in that picture he was very correct. But all the fish actually were eaten; if any small parts were missed by the birds they were taken by the detritus-eaters, the worms and cuc.u.mbers. And what they missed was reduced by the bacteria. What was the fisherman's loss was a gain to another group. We tried to say that in the macrocosm nothing is wasted, the equation always balances. The elements which the fish elaborated into an individuated physical organism, a microcosm, go back again into the undifferentiated macrocosm which is the great reservoir. There is not, nor can there be, any actual waste, but simply varying forms of energy. To each group, of course, there must be waste-the dead fish to man, the broken pieces to gulls, the bones to some and the scales to others-but to the whole, there is no waste. The great organism, Life, takes it all and uses it all. The large picture is always clear and the smaller can be clear-the picture of eater and eaten. And the large equilibrium of the life of a given animal is postulated on the presence of abundant larvae of just such forms as itself for food. Nothing is wasted; "no star is lost."

And in a sense there is no over-production, since every living thing has its niche, a posteriori, posteriori, and G.o.d, in a real, non-mystical sense, sees every sparrow fall and every cell utilized. What is called "over-production" even among us in our manufacture of articles is only over-production in terms of a status quo, but in the history of the organism, it may well be a factor or a function in some great pattern of change or repet.i.tion. Perhaps some cells, even intellectual ones, must be sickened before others can be well. And perhaps with us these production climaxes are the therapeutic fevers which cause a rush of curative blood to the sickened part. Our history is as much a product of torsion and stress as it is of unilinear drive. It is amusing that at any given point of time we haven't the slightest idea of what is happening to us. The present wars and ideological changes of nervousness and fighting seem to have direction, but in a hundred years it is more than possible it will be seen that the direction was quite different from the one we supposed. The limitation of the seeing point in time, as well as in s.p.a.ce, is a warping lens. and G.o.d, in a real, non-mystical sense, sees every sparrow fall and every cell utilized. What is called "over-production" even among us in our manufacture of articles is only over-production in terms of a status quo, but in the history of the organism, it may well be a factor or a function in some great pattern of change or repet.i.tion. Perhaps some cells, even intellectual ones, must be sickened before others can be well. And perhaps with us these production climaxes are the therapeutic fevers which cause a rush of curative blood to the sickened part. Our history is as much a product of torsion and stress as it is of unilinear drive. It is amusing that at any given point of time we haven't the slightest idea of what is happening to us. The present wars and ideological changes of nervousness and fighting seem to have direction, but in a hundred years it is more than possible it will be seen that the direction was quite different from the one we supposed. The limitation of the seeing point in time, as well as in s.p.a.ce, is a warping lens.

Among men, it seems, historically at any rate, that processes of co-ordination and disintegration follow each other with great regularity, and the index of the co-ordination is the measure of the disintegration which follows. There is no mob like a group of well-drilled soldiers when they have thrown off their discipline. And there is no lostness like that which comes to a man when a perfect and certain pattern has dissolved about him. There is no hater like one who has greatly loved.

We think these historical waves may be plotted and the harmonic curves of human group conduct observed. Perhaps out of such observation a knowledge of the function of war and destruction might emerge. Little enough is known about the function of individual pain and suffering, although from its profound organization it is suspected of being necessary as a survival mechanism. And nothing whatever is known of the group pains of the species, although it is not unreasonable to suppose that they too are somehow functions of the surviving species. It is too bad that against even such investigation we build up a hysterical and sentimental barrier. Why do we so dread to think of our species as a species? Can it be that we are afraid of what we may find? That human self-love would suffer too much and that the image of G.o.d might prove to be a mask? This could be only partly true, for if we could cease to wear the image of a kindly, bearded, interstellar dictator, we might find ourselves true images of his kingdom, our eyes the nebulae, and universes in our cells.

The safety-valve of all speculation is: It might be so. It might be so. And as long as that And as long as that might might remains, a variable deeply understood, then speculation does not easily become dogma, but remains the fluid creative thing it might be. Thus, a valid painter, letting color and line, observed, sift into his eyes, up the nerve trunks, and mix well with his experience before it flows down his hand to the canvas, has made his painting say, "It might be so." Perhaps his critic, being not so honest and not so wise, will say, "It is not so. The picture is d.a.m.ned." If this critic could say, "It is not so with me, but that might be because my mind and experience are not identical with those of the painter," that critic would be the better critic for it, just as that painter is a better painter for knowing he himself is in the pigment. remains, a variable deeply understood, then speculation does not easily become dogma, but remains the fluid creative thing it might be. Thus, a valid painter, letting color and line, observed, sift into his eyes, up the nerve trunks, and mix well with his experience before it flows down his hand to the canvas, has made his painting say, "It might be so." Perhaps his critic, being not so honest and not so wise, will say, "It is not so. The picture is d.a.m.ned." If this critic could say, "It is not so with me, but that might be because my mind and experience are not identical with those of the painter," that critic would be the better critic for it, just as that painter is a better painter for knowing he himself is in the pigment.

We tried always to understand that the reality we observed was partly us; the speculation, our product. And yet if somehow, "The laws of thought must be the laws of things," one can find an index of reality even in insanity.

We sailed a compa.s.s course in the night and before daylight a deep fog settled on us. Tony stopped the engine and let us drift, and the dawn came with the thick fog still about us. Tiny and Sparky had the watch, and as the dawn broke, they heard surf and reported it. We came out of our bunks and went up on the deckhouse just as the fog lifted. There was an island half a mile away. Then Tony said, "Did you keep the course I gave you?" Tiny insisted that they had, and Tony said, "If that is so, you have discovered an island, and a big one, because the chart shows no island here." He went on delicately, "I want to congratulate you. We'll call it 'Colletto and Enea Island.' " Tony continued silkily, "But you know G.o.dd.a.m.n well you didn't keep the course. You know you forgot, and are a good many miles off course." Sparky and Tiny did not argue. They never claimed the island, nor mentioned it again. It developed that it was Espiritu Santo Island, and would have been a prize if they had discovered it, but some Spaniards had done that several hundred years before.

San Gabriel Bay was near us, its coral sand dazzlingly white, and a good reef projecting and a mangrove swamp along part of the coast. We went ash.o.r.e for this last collecting station. The sand was so white and the water so clear that we took off our clothes and plunged about. The animals here had been affected by the white sand. The crabs were pale and nearly white, and all the animals, even the starfish, were strangely colored. There were stretches of this blinding sand alternating with bouldery reef and mangrove. In the center of the little bay, a fine big patch of green coral almost emerged from the water. It was green and brown coral in great heads, and there were Phataria Phataria and many club-spined urchins on the heads. There were mult.i.tudes of the clam and many club-spined urchins on the heads. There were mult.i.tudes of the clam Chione Chione just under the surface of the sand, very hard to find until we discovered that every clam had a tiny veil of pale-green algae growing on the front of each valve and sticking up above the sand. Then we took a great number of them. just under the surface of the sand, very hard to find until we discovered that every clam had a tiny veil of pale-green algae growing on the front of each valve and sticking up above the sand. Then we took a great number of them.

Near the beds of clams lived heart-urchins with vicious spines.85 These too were buried in the sand, and to dig for the clams was to be stabbed by the heart urchins, and to be stung badly. There were many hachas here with their cl.u.s.tered colonies of a.s.sociated fauna. We found solitary and cl.u.s.tered zoanthidean anemones, possibly the same we had been seeing in many variations. We found light-colored These too were buried in the sand, and to dig for the clams was to be stabbed by the heart urchins, and to be stung badly. There were many hachas here with their cl.u.s.tered colonies of a.s.sociated fauna. We found solitary and cl.u.s.tered zoanthidean anemones, possibly the same we had been seeing in many variations. We found light-colored Callinectes Callinectes crabs and one of the long snake-like sea-cuc.u.mbers crabs and one of the long snake-like sea-cuc.u.mbers 86 86 such as the ones we had taken at Puerto Escondido. On the rocky reef there were anemones, limpets, and many barnacles. The most common animal on the reef was a membranous tube-worm such as the ones we had taken at Puerto Escondido. On the rocky reef there were anemones, limpets, and many barnacles. The most common animal on the reef was a membranous tube-worm87 with tentacles like a serpulid's. These tentacles were purple and brown, but when approached they were withdrawn and the animal became sand-colored. The mangrove region here was rich. The roots of the trees, impacted with rocks, maintained a fine group of crabs and cuc.u.mbers. Two large, hairy grapsoid crabs with tentacles like a serpulid's. These tentacles were purple and brown, but when approached they were withdrawn and the animal became sand-colored. The mangrove region here was rich. The roots of the trees, impacted with rocks, maintained a fine group of crabs and cuc.u.mbers. Two large, hairy grapsoid crabs88 lived highest in the littoral. They were very fast and active and difficult to catch, and when caught, battled fiercely and ended up by autotomizing. lived highest in the littoral. They were very fast and active and difficult to catch, and when caught, battled fiercely and ended up by autotomizing.

There was also a Panopeus-like Panopeus-like crab, crab, Xanthodius hebes, Xanthodius hebes, but dopey and slow. We found great numbers of porcelain crabs and snapping shrimps. There were barnacles on the reef and on the roots of the mangroves; two new ophiurans and a large sea-hare, besides a miscellany of snails and clams. It was a rich haul, this last day. The sun was hot and the sand pleasant and we were comfortable except for mosquito bites. We played in the water a long time when we were tired of collecting. but dopey and slow. We found great numbers of porcelain crabs and snapping shrimps. There were barnacles on the reef and on the roots of the mangroves; two new ophiurans and a large sea-hare, besides a miscellany of snails and clams. It was a rich haul, this last day. The sun was hot and the sand pleasant and we were comfortable except for mosquito bites. We played in the water a long time when we were tired of collecting.

When once the engine started now, it would not stop until we reached San Diego. We were reluctant to go back. This balance in time is one of the very few occasions when we have the right of "yes" and "no," and even now the cards were stacked against "yes."

At last we picked up the collecting buckets and the little crowbars and all the tubes, and we rowed slowly back to the Western Flyer. Even then, we had difficulty in starting. Someone was overboard swimming in the beautiful water all the time. Tony and Tex, who had been eager to get home, were reluctant now that it was upon them. We had all felt the pattern of the Gulf, and we and the Gulf had established another pattern which was a new thing composed of it and us. At last, and with sorrow, Tex started the engine and the anchor came up for the last time.

All afternoon we stowed and lashed equipment, set the corks in hundreds of gla.s.s tubes and wrapped them in paper toweling, screwed tight the caps of jars, tied down the skiffs, and finally dropped the hatch cover in place. We covered the bookcase with triple tarpaulin, and one last time overcame the impulse to throw the Sea-Cow overboard. Then we were under way, sailing southward toward the Cape. The swordfish jumped in the afternoon light, flas.h.i.+ng like heliographs in the distance. We took back our old watches that night, and the engine drummed happily and drove us through a calm sea. In the morning the tip of the Peninsula was on our right. Behind us the Gulf was sunny and calm, but out in the Pacific a heavy threatening line of clouds hung.

Then a crazy literary thing happened. As we came opposite the Point there was one great clap of thunder, and immediately we hit the great swells of the Pacific and the wind freshened against us. The water took on a gray tone.

29.

APRIL 13.

At three A.M. Pacific time we pa.s.sed the light on the false cape and made our new course northward, and the sky was gray and threatening and the wind increased. The Gulf was blotted out for us-the Gulf that was thought and work and suns.h.i.+ne and play. This new world of the Pacific took hold of us and we thought again of an unseen person on the deckhouse, some kind of symbol person -to a sailor, a ghost, a premonition, a feeling in human form.

We could not yet relate the microcosm of the Gulf with the macrocosm of the sea. As we went northward the gray waves rolled up and the Western Flyer Western Flyer stubbed her nose into them and the white spray flew over us. The day pa.s.sed and a new night came and the sea grew more stern. Now we plunged like a nervous horse, and no step could be taken without a steadying hand. The galley was in confusion, for a can of olive oil had leaped from its stand and flooded the floor. On the stove, the coffee pot slipped back and forth between its bars. stubbed her nose into them and the white spray flew over us. The day pa.s.sed and a new night came and the sea grew more stern. Now we plunged like a nervous horse, and no step could be taken without a steadying hand. The galley was in confusion, for a can of olive oil had leaped from its stand and flooded the floor. On the stove, the coffee pot slipped back and forth between its bars.

Over the surface of the heaving sea the birds flew landward, zigzagging to cover themselves in the wave troughs from the wind. The man at the wheel was the lucky one, for he had a grip against the pitching. He was closest to the boat and to the rising storm. He was the receiver, but also he was the giver and his hand was on the course.

What was the shape and size and color and tone of this little expedition? We slipped into a new frame and grew to be a part of it, related in some subtle way to the reefs and beaches, related to the little animals, to the stirring waters and the warm brackish lagoons. This trip had dimension and tone. It was a thing whose boundaries seeped through itself and beyond into some time and s.p.a.ce that was more than all the Gulf and more than all our lives. Our fingers turned over the stones and we saw life that was like our life.

On the deckhouse we held the rails for support, and the blunt nose of the boat fought into the waves and the gray-green water struck us in the face. Some creative thing had happened, a real tempest in our small teapot minds. But boiling water still produces steam, whether in a watch-gla.s.s or in a turbine. It is the same stuff-weak and dissipating or explosive, depending on its use. The shape of the trip was an integrated nucleus from which weak strings of thought stretched into every reachable reality, and a reality which reached into us through our perceptive nerve trunks. The laws of thought seemed really one with the laws of things. There was some quality of music here, perhaps not to be communicated, but sounding clear and huge in our minds. The boat plunged and shook herself, and rivers of swirling water ran down the scuppers. Below in the hold, packed in jars, were thousands of little dead animals, but we did not think of them as trophies, as things cut off from the tide pools of the Gulf, but rather as drawings, incomplete and imperfect, of how it had been there. The real picture of how it had been there and how we had been there was in our minds, bright with sun and wet with sea water and blue or burned, and the whole crusted over with exploring thought. Here was no service to science, no naming of unknown animals, but rather-we simply liked it. We liked it very much. The brown Indians and the gardens of the sea, and the beer and the work, they were all one thing and we were that one thing too.

The Western Flyer Western Flyer hunched into the great waves toward Cedros Island, the wind blew off the tops of the whitecaps, and the big guy wire, from bow to mast, took up its vibration like the low pipe on a tremendous organ. It sang its deep note into the wind. hunched into the great waves toward Cedros Island, the wind blew off the tops of the whitecaps, and the big guy wire, from bow to mast, took up its vibration like the low pipe on a tremendous organ. It sang its deep note into the wind.

APPENDIX: ABOUT ED RICKETTS.

Just about dusk one day in April 1948 Ed Ricketts stopped work in the laboratory in Cannery Row. He covered his instruments and put away his papers and filing cards. He rolled down the sleeves of his wool s.h.i.+rt and put on the brown coat which was slightly small for him and frayed at the elbows.

He wanted a steak for dinner and he knew just the market in New Monterey where he could get a fine one, well hung and tender.

He went out into the street that is officially named Ocean View Avenue and is known as Cannery Row. His old car stood at the gutter, a beat-up sedan. The car was tricky and hard to start. He needed a new one but could not afford it at the expense of other things.

Ed tinkered away at the primer until the ancient rusty motor coughed and broke into a bronchial chatter which indicated that it was running. Ed meshed the jagged gears and moved away up the street.

He turned up the hill where the road crosses the Southern Pacific Railways track. It was almost dark, or rather that kind of mixed light and dark which makes it very difficult to see. Just before the crossing the road takes a sharp climb. Ed s.h.i.+fted to second gear, the noisiest gear, to get up the hill. The sound of his motor and gears blotted out every other sound. A corrugated iron warehouse was on his left, obscuring any sight of the right of way.

The Del Monte Express, the evening train from San Francisco, slipped around from behind the warehouse and crashed into the old car. The cow-catcher buckled in the side of the automobile and pushed and ground and mangled it a hundred yards up the track before the train stopped.

Ed was conscious when they got him out of the car and laid him on the gra.s.s. A crowd had collected of course-people from the train and more from the little houses that hug the track.

In almost no time a doctor was there. Ed's skull had a crooked look and his eyes were crossed. There was blood around his mouth, and his body was twisted, distorted-wrong, as though seen under an untrue lens.

The doctor got down on one knee and leaned over. The ring of people was silent.

Ed asked, "How bad is it?"

"I don't know," the doctor said. "How do you feel?"

"I don't feel much of anything," Ed said.

Because the doctor knew him and knew what kind of a man he was, he said, "That's shock, of course."

"Of course!" Ed said, and his eyes began to glaze.

They edged him onto a stretcher and took him to the hospital. Section hands pried his old car off the cow-catcher and pushed it aside, and the Del Monte Express moved slowly into the station at Pacific Grove, which is the end of the line.

Several doctors had come in and more were phoning, wanting to help because they all loved him. The doctors knew it was very serious, so they gave him ether and opened him up to see how bad it was. When they finished they knew it was hopeless. Ed was all messed up-spleen broken, ribs shattered, lungs punctured, concussion of the skull. It might have been better to let him go out under the ether, but the doctors could not give up, any more than could the people gathered in the waiting room of the hospital. Men who knew better began talking about miracles and how anything could happen. They reminded each other of cases of people who had got well when there was no reason to suppose they could. The surgeons cleaned Ed's insides as well as possible and closed him up. Every now and then one of the doctors would go out to the waiting room, and it was like facing a jury. There were lots of people out there, sitting waiting, and their eyes all held a stone question.

The doctors said things like, "Doing as well as can be expected" and "We won't be able to tell for some time but he seems to be making progress." They talked more than was necessary, and the people sitting there didn't talk at all. They just stared, trying to get adjusted.

The switchboard was loaded with calls from people who wanted to give blood.

The next morning Ed was conscious but very tired and groggy from ether and morphine. His eyes were washed out and he spoke with great difficulty. But he did repeat his first question.

"How bad is it?"

The doctor who was in the room caught himself just as he was going to say some soothing nonsense, remembering that Ed was his friend and that Ed loved true things and knew a lot of true things too, so the doctor said, "Very bad."

Ed didn't ask again. He hung on for a couple of days because his vitality was very great. In fact he hung on so long that some of the doctors began to believe the things they had said about miracles when they knew such a chance to be nonsense. They noted a stronger heartbeat. They saw improved color in his cheeks below the bandages. Ed hung on so long that some people from the waiting room dared to go home to get some sleep.

And then, as happens so often with men of large vitality, the energy and the color and the pulse and the breathing went away silently and quickly, and he died.

By that time the shock in Monterey had turned to dullness. He was dead and had to be got rid of. People wanted to get rid of him quickly and with dignity so they could think about him and restore him again.

On a small rise not far from the Great Tide Pool near Lighthouse Point there is a small chapel and crematory. Ed's closed coffin was put in that chapel for part of an afternoon.

Naturally no one wanted flowers, but the greatest fear was that someone might say a speech or make a remark about him-good or bad. Luckily it was all over so quickly that the people who ordinarily make speeches were caught unprepared.

A large number of people drifted into the chapel, looked for a few moments at the coffin, and then walked away. No one wanted company. Everyone wanted to be alone. Some went to the beach by the Great Tide Pool and sat in the coa.r.s.e sand and blindly watched the incoming tide creeping around the rocks and tumbling in over the seaweed.