The Log From the Sea of Cortez (Penguin Classics) by John Steinbeck
Authors: John Steinbeck
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their brilliant color.
8
MARCH 17
At two A.M. we passed Point Lazaro, one of the reputedly dangerous places of the world, like Cedros Passage, or like Cape Horn, where the weather is always bad even when it is good elsewhere. There is a sense of relief when one is safely past these half-mythical places, for they are not only stormy but treacherous, and again the atavistic fear arises—the Scylla-Charybdis fear that made our ancestors people such places with monsters and enter them only after prayer and propitiation. It was only reasonably rough when we passed, and immediately south the water was very calm. About five in the morning we came upon an even denser’concentration of the little red Pleuroncodes, and we stopped again and took a great many of them. While we netted the langustina, a skipjack struck the line and we brought him in and had him for breakfast. During the meal we said the fish was Katsuwonus pelamis, and Sparky said it was a skipjack because he was eating it and he was quite sure he would not eat Katsuwonus pelamis ever. A few hours later we caught two small dolphins, 10 startlingly beautiful fish of pure gold, pulsing and fading and changing colors. These fish are very widely distributed.
We were coming now toward the end of our day-and-night running; the engine had never paused since we left San Diego except for idling the little time while we took the langustina. The coastline of the Peninsula slid along, brown and desolate and dry with strange flat mountains and rocks torn by dryness, and the heat shimmer hung over the land even in March. Tony had kept us well offshore, and only now we approached closer to land, for we would arrive at Cape San Lucas in the night, and from then on we planned to run only in the daytime. Some collecting stations we had projected, like Pulmo Reef and La Paz and Angeles Bay, but except for those, we planned to stop wherever the shore looked interesting. Even this little trip of ninety hours, though, had grown long, and we were glad to be getting to the end of it. The dry hills were red gold that afternoon and in the night no one left the top of the deckhouse. The Southern Cross was well above the horizon, and the air was warm and pleasant. Tony spent a long time in the galley going over the charts. He had been to Cape San Lucas once before. Around ten o’clock we saw the lighthouse on the false cape. The night was extremely dark when we rounded the end; the great tall rocks called “The Friars” were blackly visible. The Coast Pilot spoke of a light on the end of the San Lucas pier, but we could see no light. Tony edged the boat slowly into the dark harbor. Once a flashlight showed for a moment on the shore and then went out. It was after midnight, and of course there would be no light in a Mexican house at such a time. The searchlight on our deckhouse seemed to be sucked up by the darkness. Sparky on the bow with the leadline found deep water, and we moved slowly in, stopping and drifting and sounding. And then suddenly there was the beach, thirty feet away, with little waves breaking on it, and still we had eight fathoms on the lead. We backed away a little and dropped the anchor and waited until it took a firm grip. Then the engine stopped, and we sat for a long time on the deckhouse. The sweet smell of the land blew out to us on a warm wind, a smell of sand verbena and grass and mangrove. It is so quickly forgotten, this land smell. We know it so well on shore that the nose forgets it, but after a few days at sea the odor memory pattern is lost so that the first land smell strikes a powerful emotional nostalgia, very sharp and strangely dear.
In the morning the black mystery of the night was gone and the little harbor was shining and warm. The tuna cannery against the gathering rocks of the point and a few houses along the edge of the beach were the only habitations visible. And with the day came the answer to the lightlessness of the night
8
MARCH 17
At two A.M. we passed Point Lazaro, one of the reputedly dangerous places of the world, like Cedros Passage, or like Cape Horn, where the weather is always bad even when it is good elsewhere. There is a sense of relief when one is safely past these half-mythical places, for they are not only stormy but treacherous, and again the atavistic fear arises—the Scylla-Charybdis fear that made our ancestors people such places with monsters and enter them only after prayer and propitiation. It was only reasonably rough when we passed, and immediately south the water was very calm. About five in the morning we came upon an even denser’concentration of the little red Pleuroncodes, and we stopped again and took a great many of them. While we netted the langustina, a skipjack struck the line and we brought him in and had him for breakfast. During the meal we said the fish was Katsuwonus pelamis, and Sparky said it was a skipjack because he was eating it and he was quite sure he would not eat Katsuwonus pelamis ever. A few hours later we caught two small dolphins, 10 startlingly beautiful fish of pure gold, pulsing and fading and changing colors. These fish are very widely distributed.
We were coming now toward the end of our day-and-night running; the engine had never paused since we left San Diego except for idling the little time while we took the langustina. The coastline of the Peninsula slid along, brown and desolate and dry with strange flat mountains and rocks torn by dryness, and the heat shimmer hung over the land even in March. Tony had kept us well offshore, and only now we approached closer to land, for we would arrive at Cape San Lucas in the night, and from then on we planned to run only in the daytime. Some collecting stations we had projected, like Pulmo Reef and La Paz and Angeles Bay, but except for those, we planned to stop wherever the shore looked interesting. Even this little trip of ninety hours, though, had grown long, and we were glad to be getting to the end of it. The dry hills were red gold that afternoon and in the night no one left the top of the deckhouse. The Southern Cross was well above the horizon, and the air was warm and pleasant. Tony spent a long time in the galley going over the charts. He had been to Cape San Lucas once before. Around ten o’clock we saw the lighthouse on the false cape. The night was extremely dark when we rounded the end; the great tall rocks called “The Friars” were blackly visible. The Coast Pilot spoke of a light on the end of the San Lucas pier, but we could see no light. Tony edged the boat slowly into the dark harbor. Once a flashlight showed for a moment on the shore and then went out. It was after midnight, and of course there would be no light in a Mexican house at such a time. The searchlight on our deckhouse seemed to be sucked up by the darkness. Sparky on the bow with the leadline found deep water, and we moved slowly in, stopping and drifting and sounding. And then suddenly there was the beach, thirty feet away, with little waves breaking on it, and still we had eight fathoms on the lead. We backed away a little and dropped the anchor and waited until it took a firm grip. Then the engine stopped, and we sat for a long time on the deckhouse. The sweet smell of the land blew out to us on a warm wind, a smell of sand verbena and grass and mangrove. It is so quickly forgotten, this land smell. We know it so well on shore that the nose forgets it, but after a few days at sea the odor memory pattern is lost so that the first land smell strikes a powerful emotional nostalgia, very sharp and strangely dear.
In the morning the black mystery of the night was gone and the little harbor was shining and warm. The tuna cannery against the gathering rocks of the point and a few houses along the edge of the beach were the only habitations visible. And with the day came the answer to the lightlessness of the night
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