Read The Log from the Sea of Cortez Online
Authors: John Steinbeck,Richard Astro
The Log from the Sea of Cortez (14 page)
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We loaded the smaller skiff with collecting materials: the containers and bars, tubes and buckets. We put the Sea-Cow on the stern and it made one of its few mistakes. It thought we were going directly to the beach instead of to the reef a mile away. It started up with a great roar and ran for a quarter of a mile before it became aware of its mistake. It was rarely fooled again. We rowed on to the reef.
Collecting in this region, we always wore rubber boots. There are many animals which sting, some severely, and at least one urchin which is highly poisonous. Some of the worms, such as
Eurythoë,
leave spines in the skin which burn unmercifully. And even a barnacle cut infects readily. It is impossible to wear gloves; one must simply be as careful as possible and look where the finger is going before it is put down. Some of the little beasts are incredibly gallant and ferocious. On one occasion, a moray eel not more than eight inches long lashed out from under a rock, bit one of us on the finger, and retired. If one is not naturally cautious, painful and bandaged hands very soon teach caution. The boots protect one’s feet from nearly everything, but there is an urchin which has spines so sharp that they pierce the rubber and break off in the flesh, and they sting badly and usually cause infection.
Eurythoë,
leave spines in the skin which burn unmercifully. And even a barnacle cut infects readily. It is impossible to wear gloves; one must simply be as careful as possible and look where the finger is going before it is put down. Some of the little beasts are incredibly gallant and ferocious. On one occasion, a moray eel not more than eight inches long lashed out from under a rock, bit one of us on the finger, and retired. If one is not naturally cautious, painful and bandaged hands very soon teach caution. The boots protect one’s feet from nearly everything, but there is an urchin which has spines so sharp that they pierce the rubber and break off in the flesh, and they sting badly and usually cause infection.
Pulmo is a coral reef. It has often been remarked that reef-building corals seem to live only on the eastern sides of large land bodies, not on the western sides. This has been noticed many times, and even here at Pulmo the reef-building coral
14
occurs only on the eastern side of the Peninsula. This can have nothing to do with wave-shock or current, but must be governed by another of those unknown factors so ever-present and so haunting to the ecologist.
14
occurs only on the eastern side of the Peninsula. This can have nothing to do with wave-shock or current, but must be governed by another of those unknown factors so ever-present and so haunting to the ecologist.
The complexity of the life-pattern on Pulmo Reef was even greater than at Cape San Lucas. Clinging to the coral, growing on it, burrowing into it, was a teeming fauna. Every piece of the soft material broken off skittered and pulsed with life—little crabs and worms and snails. One small piece of coral might conceal thirty or forty species, and the colors on the reef were electric. The sharp-spined urchins
15
gave us trouble immediately, for several of us, on putting our feet down injudiciously, drove the spines into our toes.
15
gave us trouble immediately, for several of us, on putting our feet down injudiciously, drove the spines into our toes.
The reef was gradually exposed as the tide went down, and on its flat top the tide pools were beautiful. We collected as widely and rapidly as possible, trying to take a cross-section of the animals we saw. There were purple pendent gorgonians like lacy fans; a number of small spine-covered puffer fish which bloat themselves when they are attacked, erecting the spines; and many starfish, including some purple and gold cushion stars. The club-spined sea-urchins
16
were numerous in their rock niches. They seemed to move about very little, for their niches always just fit them, and have the marks of constant occupation. We took a number of the slim green and brown starfish
17
and the large slim five-rayed starfish with plates bordering the ambulacral grooves.
18
There were numbers of barnacles and several types of brittle-stars. We took one huge, magnificent murex snail. One large hemispherical snail was so camouflaged with little plants, corallines, and other algae that it could not be told from the reef itself until it was turned over. Rock oysters there were, and oysters; limpets and sponges; corals of two types; peanut worms; sea-cucumbers; and many crabs, particularly some disguised in dresses of growing algae which made them look like knobs on the reef until they moved. There were many worms, including our enemy
Eurythoë,
which stings so badly. This worm makes one timid about reaching without looking. The coral clusters were violently inhabited by snapping shrimps, red smooth crabs,
19
and little fuzzy black and white spider crabs.
20
Autotomy in these crabs, shrimps, and brittle-stars is very highly developed. At last, under the reef, we saw a large fleshy gorgonian, or sea-fan, waving gently in the clear water, but it was deep and we could not reach it. One of us took off his clothes and dived for it, expecting at any moment to be attacked by one of those monsters we do not believe in. It was murky under the reef, and the colors of the sponges were more brilliant than in those exposed to greater light. The diver did not stay long; he pulled the large sea-fan free and came up again. And although he went down a number of times, this was the only one of this type of gorgonian he could find. Indeed, it was the only one taken on the entire trip.
16
were numerous in their rock niches. They seemed to move about very little, for their niches always just fit them, and have the marks of constant occupation. We took a number of the slim green and brown starfish
17
and the large slim five-rayed starfish with plates bordering the ambulacral grooves.
18
There were numbers of barnacles and several types of brittle-stars. We took one huge, magnificent murex snail. One large hemispherical snail was so camouflaged with little plants, corallines, and other algae that it could not be told from the reef itself until it was turned over. Rock oysters there were, and oysters; limpets and sponges; corals of two types; peanut worms; sea-cucumbers; and many crabs, particularly some disguised in dresses of growing algae which made them look like knobs on the reef until they moved. There were many worms, including our enemy
Eurythoë,
which stings so badly. This worm makes one timid about reaching without looking. The coral clusters were violently inhabited by snapping shrimps, red smooth crabs,
19
and little fuzzy black and white spider crabs.
20
Autotomy in these crabs, shrimps, and brittle-stars is very highly developed. At last, under the reef, we saw a large fleshy gorgonian, or sea-fan, waving gently in the clear water, but it was deep and we could not reach it. One of us took off his clothes and dived for it, expecting at any moment to be attacked by one of those monsters we do not believe in. It was murky under the reef, and the colors of the sponges were more brilliant than in those exposed to greater light. The diver did not stay long; he pulled the large sea-fan free and came up again. And although he went down a number of times, this was the only one of this type of gorgonian he could find. Indeed, it was the only one taken on the entire trip.
The collecting buckets and tubes and jars were very full of specimens—so full that we had constantly to change the water to keep the animals alive. Several large pieces of coral were taken and kept submerged in buckets and later were allowed to lie in stale sea water in one of the pans. This is an interesting thing, for as the water goes stale, the thousands of little roomers which live in the tubes and caves and interstices of the coral come out of hiding and scramble for a new home. Worms and tiny crabs appear from nowhere and are then easily picked up.
The sea bottom inside the reef was of white sand studded with purple and gold cushion stars, of which we collected many. And lying on the sandy bottom were heads and knobs of another coral,
21
much harder and more regularly formed than the reef-building coral. The rush of collecting as much as possible before the tide recovered the reef made us indiscriminate in our collecting, but in the long run this did not matter. For once on board the boat again we could re-collect, going over the pieces of coral and rubble carefully and very often finding animals we had not known were there.
21
much harder and more regularly formed than the reef-building coral. The rush of collecting as much as possible before the tide recovered the reef made us indiscriminate in our collecting, but in the long run this did not matter. For once on board the boat again we could re-collect, going over the pieces of coral and rubble carefully and very often finding animals we had not known were there.
El Pulmo was the only coral reef we found on the entire expedition, and the fauna and even the algae were rather specialized to it. No very great surf could have beaten it, for extremely delicate animals lived on its exposed top where they would have been crushed or washed away had strong seas struck them. And the competition for existence was as great as it had been at San Lucas, but it seemed to us that different methods were employed for frustrating enemies. Whereas at San Lucas speed and ferocity were the attributes of most animals, at Pulmo concealment and camouflage were largely employed. The little crabs wore masks of algae and bryozoa and even hydroids, and most animals had little tunnels or some protected place to run to. The softness of the coral made this possible, where the hard smooth granite of San Lucas had forbidden it. On several occasions we wished for diving equipment, but never more than here at Pulmo, for the under-cut shoreward side of the reef concealed hazy wonders which we could not get at. It is not satisfactory to hold one’s breath and to look with unglassed eyes through the dim waters.
The water behind the reef was very warm. We abandoned our boots and, putting on tennis shoes to protect our feet from various stingers, we dived again and again for perfect knobs of coral.
Again we tried to start the Sea-Cow—and then rowed back to the
Western Flyer.
There we complained so bitterly to Tex, the engineer, that he took the evil little thing to pieces. Piece by piece he examined it, with a look of incredulity in his eyes. He admired, I think, the ingenuity which could build such a perfect little engine, and he was astonished at the concept of building a whole motor for the purpose of not running. Having put it together again, he made a discovery. The Sea-Cow would run perfectly out of water—that is, in a barrel of water with the propeller and cooling inlet submerged. Placed thus, the Sea-Cow functioned perfectly and got good mileage.
Western Flyer.
There we complained so bitterly to Tex, the engineer, that he took the evil little thing to pieces. Piece by piece he examined it, with a look of incredulity in his eyes. He admired, I think, the ingenuity which could build such a perfect little engine, and he was astonished at the concept of building a whole motor for the purpose of not running. Having put it together again, he made a discovery. The Sea-Cow would run perfectly out of water—that is, in a barrel of water with the propeller and cooling inlet submerged. Placed thus, the Sea-Cow functioned perfectly and got good mileage.
Immediately on arriving back at the Western Flyer we pulled up the anchor and got under way again. It was efficient that we preserve and label while we sailed as long as the sea was calm, and now it was very calm. The great collection from the reef required every enameled pan and glass dish we had. The killing and relaxing and preserving took us until dark, and even after dark we sat and made the labels to go into the tubes. As the jars filled and were labeled, we put them back in their corrugated-paper cartons and stowed them in the hold. The corked tubes were tested for leaks, then wrapped in paper toweling and stacked in boxes. Thus there was very small loss from breakage or leakage, and by labeling the same day as collecting, there had thus far been virtually no confusion in the tabulation of animals. But we knew already that we had made one error in planning: we had not brought nearly enough small containers. It is best to place an animal alone in a jar or a tube which accommodates him, but not too freely. The enormous numbers of animals we took strained our resources and containers long before we were through.
As we moved up the Gulf, the mirage we had heard about began to distort the land. While it is worse on the Sonora coast, it is sufficiently interesting on the Peninsula to produce a heady, crazy feeling in the observer. As you pass a headland it suddenly splits off and becomes an island and then the water seems to stretch inward and pinch it to a mushroom-shaped cliff, and finally to liberate it from the earth entirely so that it hangs in the air over the water. Even a short distance offshore one cannot tell what the land really looks like. Islands too far off, according to the map, are visible; while others which should be near by cannot be seen at all until suddenly they come bursting out of the mirage. The whole surrounding land is unsubstantial and changing. One remembers the old stories of invisible kingdoms where princes lived with ladies and dragons for company; and the more modern fairy-tales in which heroes drift in and out of dimensions more complex than the original three. We are open enough to miracles of course, but what must have been the feeling of the discovering Spaniards? Miracles were daily happenings to them. Perhaps to that extent their feet were more firmly planted on the ground. Subject as they were to the constant apparitions of saints, to the trooping of holy virgins into their dreams and reveries, perhaps mirages were commonplaces. We have seen many miraculous figures in Mexico. They are usually Christs which have supernaturally appeared on mountains or in caves and usually at times of crisis. But it does seem odd that the heavenly authorities, when they wished a miraculous image to appear, invariably chose bad Spanish wood-carving of the seventeenth century. But perhaps art criticism in heaven was very closely related to the sensibilities of the time. Certainly it would have been a little shocking to find an Epstein Christ under a tree on a mountain in Mexico, or a Brancusi bird, or a Dali Descent from the Cross.
It must have been a difficult task for those first sturdy Jesuit fathers to impress the Indians of the Gulf. The very air here is miraculous, and outlines of reality change with the moment. The sky sucks up the land and disgorges it. A dream hangs over the whole region, a brooding kind of hallucination. Perhaps only the shock of seventeenth-century wood-carving could do the trick; surely the miracle must have been very virile to be effective.
Tony grew restive when the mirage was working, for here right and wrong fought before his very eyes, and how could one tell which was error? It is very well to say, “The land is here and what blots it out is a curious illusion caused by light and air and moisture,” but if one is steering a boat, he must sail by what he sees, and if air and light and moisture—three realities—plot together and perpetrate a lie, what is a realistic man to believe? Tony did not like the mirage at all.
While we worked at the specimens, the trolling lines were out and we caught another skipjack, large and fat and fast. As it came in on the line, one of us ran for the moving-picture camera, for we wanted to record on color film the changing tints and patterns of the fish’s dying. But the exposure was wrong as usual, and we did not get it.
Near the moving boat swordfishes played about. They seemed to play in pure joy or exhibitionism. It is thought that they leap to clear themselves of parasites; they jump clear of the water and come crashing down, and sometimes they turn over in the air and flash in the sunshine. This afternoon, too, we saw the first specimens of the great manta ray (a giant skate), and we rigged the harpoons and coiled the line ready. One light harpoon just pierced a swordfish’s tail, but he swished away, for the barb had not penetrated. And we did not turn and pursue the great rays, for we wished to anchor that night near Point Lobos on Espiritu Santo Island.
In the evening we came near to it, but as we prepared to anchor, the wind sprang up full on us, and Tony decided to run for the shelter of Pescadero Point on the mainland. The wind seemed to grow instantly out of the evening, and the sea with it. The jars and collecting pans were in danger of flying overboard. For half an hour we were very busy tying the equipment down and removing the flapping canvas we had stretched to keep the sun off our specimen pans. Under the powerful wind we crossed the channel which leads to La Paz, and saw the channel light—the first one we had seen since the big one on the false cape. This one seemed very strange in the Gulf. The waves were not high, but the wind blew with great intensity, making whitecaps rather than rollers, and only when we ran in under Pescadero Point did we drop the wind. We eased in slowly, sounding as we went. When the anchor was finally down we cooked and ate the skipjack, a most delicious fish. And after dinner a group action took place.
We carried no cook and dishwasher; it had been understood that we would all help. But for some time Tex had been secretly mutinous about washing dishes. At the proper times he had things to do in the engine-room. He might have succeeded in this crime, if he had ever varied his routine, but gradually a suspicion grew on us that Tex did not like to wash dishes. He denied this vigorously. He said he liked very much to wash dishes. He appealed to our reason. How would we like it, he argued, if we were forever in the engine-room, getting our hands dirty? There was danger down there too, he said. Men had been killed by engines. He was not willing to see us take the risk. We met his arguments with a silence that made him nervous. He protested then that he had once washed dishes from west Texas to San Diego without stopping, and that he had learned to love it so much that he didn’t want to be selfish about it now. A circle of cold eyes surrounded him. He began to sweat. He said that later (he didn’t say how much later) he was going to ask us for the privilege of washing all the dishes, but right now he had a little job to do in the engine-room. It was for the safety of the ship, he said. No one answered him. Then he cried, “My God, are you going to hang me?” At last Sparky spoke up, not unkindly, but inexorably. “Tex,” he said, “you’re going to wash ‘em or you’re going to sleep with ’em.” Tex said, “Now just as soon as I do one little job there’s nothing I’d rather do than wash four or five thousand dishes.” Each of us picked up a load of dishes, carried them in, and laid them gently in Tex’s bunk. He got up resignedly then and carried them back and washed them. He didn’t grumble, but he was broken. Some joyous light had gone out of him, and he never did get the catsup out of his blankets.
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