The Log from the Sea of Cortez (35 page)
Read The Log from the Sea of Cortez Online
Authors: John Steinbeck,Richard Astro
We arrived early at Guaymas, passed the usual tests of customs, got our mail at the consulate, and then did the various things of the port. Some of those things are amusing, but they are out of drawing for this account. Guaymas was already in the pathway of the good highway; it was no longer “local.” At La Paz and Loreto the Gulf and the town were one, inextricably bound together, but here at Guaymas the railroad and the hotel had broken open that relationship. There were gimcracks for tourists everywhere. This is no criticism of the change, but Guaymas seems to us to be outside the boundaries of the Gulf. We had good treatment there, met charming people, did good and bad things, and left with reluctance.
27
APRIL 8
We sailed out on Monday, a little tattered and a little tired. Captain Corona, pilot and shrimp-boat owner, who had been kind and hospitable to us, piloted us out and stopped one of his incoming boats for us to inspect. It was a poor small boat, and had not much of a catch of shrimps. Everyone in this neighborhood had complained of the Japanese shrimpers who were destroying the shrimp fisheries. We determined to pay them a visit on the next day. The moment we dropped the pilot, just outside of Guaymas, the Gulf was local again and part of the design it had put in our heads. The mirage was over the land and the sea was very blue. We sailed only a short distance and dropped our anchor in a little cove opposite the Pajaro Island light. That night we caught a number of fish that looked and felt like catfish. Tex skinned them and prepared them, and we did not eat them. A little gloom hung over all of us; Sparky and Tiny had fallen in love with Guaymas and planned to go back there and live forever. But Tex and Tony were gloomy and a little homesick.
We were awakened well before daylight by the voices of men paddling out for the day’s fishing, 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 Japanese fishing fleet. There were six ships doing the actual dredging while a large mother ship of at least 10,000 tons stood farther offshore 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 ship, 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 scraping 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 passed 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 ship. The dredge was out when we came aboard, but soon the cable drums began to turn, bringing in the heavy purse-dredge. The big scraper 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 butterfly rays; small tuna; catfish;
puerco
—tons of them. And there were bottom-samples with anemones and grass-like gorgonians. The sea bottom must have been scraped completely clean. The moment the net dropped open and spilled this mass of living things on the deck, the crew of Japanese 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 Japanese, 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.
puerco
—tons of them. And there were bottom-samples with anemones and grass-like gorgonians. The sea bottom must have been scraped completely clean. The moment the net dropped open and spilled this mass of living things on the deck, the crew of Japanese 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 Japanese, 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 Japanese, 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 ship 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 Japanese in a high falsetto, and his cry was repeated by the helmsman.
We went up on the bridge, and as we passed this leadsman he said, “Hello.” We stopped and talked to him a few moments before we realized that that was the only English word he knew. The Japanese 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
stylirostris,
and one small specimen was
P. californiensis.
Penaeus
stylirostris,
and one small specimen was
P. californiensis.
The shrimps inspected all had the ovaries distended and apparently, as with the Canadian
Pandalus,
this shrimp had the male-female succession. That is, all the animals are born male, but all become females on passing 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
of
California
and whatever other publications on shrimps we could find.
Pandalus,
this shrimp had the male-female succession. That is, all the animals are born male, but all become females on passing 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
of
California
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 Japanese 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 relationship.
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 Japanese captain were both good men, but by their association 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, twanged 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 assembly 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 glassy 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 ashore 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 flashing 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 shore, 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
was lost and the shore blotted out. With the last flashing 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 glassy 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.”
This is a quick fierce storm which has destroyed more ships 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
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.
Western Flyer
was lost and the shore blotted out. With the last flashing 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 glassy 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.”
This is a quick fierce storm which has destroyed more ships 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
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.
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