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Echoes of the 'Sea of Cortez'
http://www.npr.org/programs/re/archivesdate/2004/may/cortez/
Replicating the Discoveries of Steinbeck and Ricketts
May 20-21, 2004 -- In 1940, on the eve of World War II, acclaimed author John Steinbeck and his good friend, marine biologist Ed Ricketts, sailed off
from the Northern California city of Monterey to explore the Sea of Cortez, the long, narrow gulf between the Baja California peninsula and mainland
Mexico.
Steinbeck had just finished The Grapes of Wrath, and Ricketts -- immortalized as Doc in Steinbeck's famous book Cannery Row -- had just finished his
seminal study Between Pacific Tides. After their voyage they co-authored Sea of Cortez, a meticulously detailed study of hundreds of tideland species,
spiced with philosophical digressions.
A small group of scientists is currently following in the wake of the Ricketts-Steinbeck voyage, hoping to find out how the gulf has changed over the
past 64 years. In the latest report for Radio Expeditions, NPR's John McChesney caught up with their boat not long after the crew entered the southern
mouth of the Sea of Cortez, near the city of La Paz at the tip of the Baja California peninsula.
The boat used for this modern voyage is the Gus-D, an aging, wooden-hulled shrimp trawler. It's definitely not a luxury cruiser -- her hull is smeared
with rust, her rails are splintered, her gear is rusty and sooty. But the scientists insist it's a vessel worthy of the voyage, because it stays loyal
to the low-budget spirit of the original trip Steinbeck and Ricketts made in an equally scruffy boat, the Western Flyer.
The sea's warm, protected waters form a massive natural aquarium, one of the most diverse marine environments in the world -- containing everything
from 50-ton sperm whales to the tiny animals found in tide pools.
An early stop for Steinbeck and Ricketts was Espiritu Santo Island, described by Steinbeck this way: "mountainous and stands high and sheer from the
water." In 1940, Steinbeck and Ricketts detailed tide pools swarming with brittlestars and sea cucumbers, rocks crawling with agile crabs and the
nests of countless birds.
Bill Gilly, the new expedition's chief scientist from Stanford University's Hopkins Marine Station, leads a crew of assistants in documenting the
current state of tide pools on the island in painstaking detail. He and the other scientists on this journey are hoping their measurements will help
future generations gauge the environmental health of a marine life paradise.
"This is really the first site we've come to that has so much diversity that it's really hard to keep up," Gilly says. That's good news. In spite of
intensive commercial fishing and shoreline resort development, the sensitive tideland life forms here still seem to be thriving.
Not far away from the place where Gus-D scientists believe Steinbeck and Ricketts made their initial discoveries, huge oil tanks for a refinery hunker
on the shore and holiday crowds fill a white beach. The Gus-D crew finds the tide pools still teeming with creatures -- or in the words of Ricketts,
"ferocious with life."
Science writer Jon Christensen, the expedition coordinator, says Ricketts' and Steinbeck's book inspired him to undertake this voyage "I think that
the log from the Sea of Cortez is a beautiful blending of science and ecology and literature and philosophy," he says. "But I think it was a project
that was unfinished."
Ricketts, he says, had a theory that all life on the Pacific seaboard was connected, that what affected one tide pool would influence life in others.
It was a radical notion at the time, and Ricketts wanted to test his theory by surveying the coast of the Pacific Northwest.
But the war and personal tragedy intervened. Sea of Cortez was published the same week the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. Steinbeck served as a war
correspondent, and Ricketts was drafted. A few years after the war, Ricketts was killed at a train crossing.
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elgatoloco
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http://www.seaofcortez.org/Ship%27s%20Log.html
MAGA
Making Attorneys Get Attorneys
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Skeet/Loreto
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Thank you for the Excellent Information!
The Positive and Truthful Reports are Welcome among the False and Mis-leading information by many of the "Unlearned Posters"!
Skeet/Loreto
"In God I Trust"
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bajalera
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Skeet, that's certainly a snotty post! All of us can be classed among the "Unlearned Posters" in some respect or other. Who appointed you to be the
judge of what is a Positive and Truthful report, and what is False and Misleading information?
Lera
\"Very few things happen at the right time, and the rest never happen at all. The conscientious historian will correct these defects.\" -
Mark Twain
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daveB
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Mood: wondering about Nomads!
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I know you liked that one Skeet and so did I. Many years ago Steinbeck's script rolled before my eyes, all of it, and held my attention like
Hemmingway's. I'm glad he got away on "vacation" for awhile before being caught up in the war. Most historians BTW would say the war started a few
months before, back in 1939, but I know I'm stretching it a bit. All the same, we don't want history rewritten. And lets hope the Sea of Cortes stays
healthy.
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Skeet/Loreto
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Daveb
I waded through the "Braless Flower Girls
of Shattuak Ave. in Berkerly one afternoon in 1968 to the Bookstore at Straither Gate and purchased a hardback copy of "The Sea Of Cortez'. It changed
my life forever!
I became fasaniated with the "Mar de Cortez" ending up with getting a piece of Property on the Beach North of Loreto formerly know as "Rancho
Sonrisa" and exploring the Great Sea for 30 years , mostly in a Panga in the company of a Young Mexicano Panga Capt. know as Alvaro Murillo of the
Murillo Family of San Nicolas.Lived at San Nicolas for about 4 years ,being the only Americano around!
Shark fishing with Enrique Murillo,Parquete Fishing with his Father Avail Murillo,Diving around the Isla deLefonso for hours at a time.Observing the
very unique Bird Life on the Isla.
Later spending many hours around Isla Carmen, Catalina and about 50 miles south of Loreto.
Lobster, Clams, Yellowtail, dorado, Lingcod, Sea Catfish,theasher sharks, and as many as 48 whales sightings in one Season, Pilot Whales coached to my
Panga and touched, Giant Manta RAy as big as a Room, Fish Pileups a Mile Long.
Yellowfin Tuna up to 70lbs,Marlin estimated at 375 Lbs, two Grouper in one day at 180 and 100 Lbs. 24 feet of yellowtail layed side by side, and the
largest an 800 Lb. Blue Shark,whose Jaws adorned my Humble Wall.{the meat was fileted,salted.sent to Mexico City to feed the many Poor.
Remember that some of that is gone but not{90% Devastation as put forth in Previous Posts}
The fish are still there to be caught or ovserved for those who are willing to Adventure with and old time Panga Capt. who has the Knowledge.
You cannot do it with a Fast boat and a GPS.
Skeet/Loreto
"In God I Trust"
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Anonymous
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Sequel to Steinbeck voyage was `ethereal'
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/nation/2598006
By CARL NOLTE
May 29, 2004
A boatload of admirers of novelist John Steinbeck and his friend, biologist Ed Ricketts, said Thursday that re-creating the pair's 1940 voyage to the
Sea of Cortez was harder work than they thought, but that the waters of Baja California were more intriguing than they had imagined.
The expedition, a mixture of writers and scientists who shoved off in March aboard the 73-foot fishing boat Gus D on a trip of their dreams, just
returned from following the tracks chronicled in Steinbeck's book Log From the Sea of Cortez.
In Steinbeck's time, the Sea of Cortez was a remote and bleak corner of the world, literally a backwater, alive with an amazing biodiversity of sea
and tidal life. Now, large portions of Baja California have been turned into resorts, particularly Cabo San Lucas, which is the northern edge of what
the travel industry likes to call "the Mexican Riviera."
"A lot of it is gone," said William Gilly, a Stanford biology professor who led the modern-day expedition. "Places like Cabo San Lucas, and maybe
Puerto Escondido, are pretty much gone."
Gilly said development had made a big difference.
"The less interaction with humans, the better it is for natural communities," said Chuck Baxter, a biologist with Stanford's Hopkins Marine Station in
Monterey who was part of the trip.
On the other hand, nearly all of the rest of the shores of the Pacific and the Sea of Cortez are still wonders. "A lot of the area is still gorgeous,
and not impacted," Gilly said.
"We found a lot of very rich and biodiverse places," Baxter said.
"If you pull back and look, you find the Sea of Cortez is marvelously rich in biodiversity," said Jon Christensen, a Steinbeck Fellow at San Jose
State University who hopes to write a book about the voyage.
For Baxter, a favorite part of the trip was working the intertidal zone on the Pacific Coast of Baja, a barren coastline that is not well-studied.
They went ashore, turned over rocks to see what was underneath and found sea life "strikingly abundant," Baxter said. "So little work has been done in
that area and so little is known about it." He plans to return.
For Gilly and Christensen, the best area was in the middle of the Gulf of California, the less romantic name for the Sea of Cortez. For three days,
the Gus D drifted in a gyre -- a sort of circular current, like a slow whirlpool -- not far from Isla San Pedro Martir.
They saw plankton, sperm whales and uncounted numbers of giant Humboldt shrimp, a species that was not present in the Sea of Cortez when Steinbeck and
Ricketts were there in 1940.
"We were in the middle of the gulf, drifting in fog and mist," Gilly said. "It was ethereal. It felt as far as you could get from anything. It was a
whole new world."
The travelers noticed changes in the life of the Sea of Cortez -- almost no bluefin tuna, which had been abundant in Steinbeck's time. No turtles, not
one. But millions of jumbo squid. "It was squid city," Gilly said.
Observations of the large numbers of squid, and their habits and spawning grounds, could be an important result of the expedition, Gilly said. "When I
get that professionally identified, it will be a quick and dirty major find."
But the expedition was hard work, too -- working in the tidal zones, on wet rocks, pulling nets full of specimens on board the boat. "The hardest work
I've ever done," said Christensen, who said the trip left him "bone tired."
Gilly was delighted with the expedition. After all, it was his idea. "It's always nice to come up with an idea and have it work."
Would Christensen do it again? He laughed. "No," he said. "It was a once in a lifetime trip."
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