by Casey, Susan
He placed one on deck. The urchin was the lush red color of a heart, and it waved its dozens of legs like an insect that had been flipped onto its back. The legs, or maybe they were arms, were shaped like spiny skewers. Using a tool that resembled a can opener, Ron cracked it in half. You’d think that would mean it was dead, but the spines kept waving without missing a beat. Inside the shell was a drippy brown goo and some grainy yellow blobs the consistency of custard. These were the gonads, more palatably known as “roe.” Both males and females have them; urchins are hermaphrodites. Ron held out a piece on his knife. The gonads tasted fresh and salty, like the ocean.
I was surprised to learn that urchins marched around on the seafloor. I’d assumed they were rooted, in barnacle fashion. In fact, there’s a far livelier scene going on down there than you might realize. Even the sea anemones, which look like colorful flowers or wavy coral, have intelligence; Ron said they often reached out and stung him on the part of his face that wasn’t covered by his mask, somehow discerning that skin was vulnerable, while rubber was not. You don’t necessarily think of the scenery as possessing free will, carnivorous intent, and a plan, but Ron once saw a sea anemone ingest an entire live murre, a bird the size of a small mallard duck. This is not something that happens accidentally.
The radio bleeped. “Peter, you copy?” It was Nat.
“Roger, go ahead.”
“You’ve got an attack off Indian Head. A floater.”
We clambered into the whaler, leaving Ron to unsuit and unwind and prepare for the two-hour drive back to Bodega Bay and a profitable appointment with his urchin processor.
THE YEARLING ELEPHANT SEAL BOBBED, HEADLESS, AT THE FAR WEST end of the island, almost exactly on the spot where we’d set out the surfboard our first night. A fiery cloud of blood billowed around the body. A few seconds passed, and the shark was on it; a dorsal fin sliced by our stern. Its head rose from the water and, rather serenely, began to tear pieces of meat from the seal. Peter filmed with the underwater camera, occasionally reaching around to steer the idling whaler; Kevin stood poised with a tag, and I was busy shooting topside video, my latest responsibility. I fumbled with the lens cap and the on/off switch and finally got the camera trained on the kill. The scene was decidedly unfrenzied, and no other sharks showed up, which was unusual on Rat Pack turf.
“As far as attacks go, it doesn’t get any mellower than this,” Peter said, sounding almost bored. We were right beside the shark, within petting distance, although that’s a bad idea. I could see three white scratches on its head, and a black puncture the size of a silver dollar, and the line where its white underbelly met its black top coat, and I could see the seal’s blood as it ran between the shark’s teeth. I could see straight into its eyes, although I can’t tell you exactly what I found there. Absolute focus, maybe. The shark wasn’t remotely distracted by us until after its meal, when it began to circle the whaler, giving the propeller an investigatory bite. Kevin reached over with the harpoon and tagged it easily. As the tag went in, it made a sort of crunching noise, but the shark barely reacted. This was a fifteen-footer, most likely a male, and he was new. Peter didn’t know him.
Observing the shark’s size, gender, distinguishing marks, and individual behaviors as it swam around the boat was a challenge in the lightless water, but it was important to make sure the animal that was about to be tagged was not already wearing a satellite tag, unless you enjoyed watching thirty-five hundred dollars go swimming down the drain. A couple of times in the past, this had almost happened. There were other research programs tagging white sharks in other locations, like Guadalupe Island or Southern California or Año Nuevo Island near the southern tip of the Red Triangle, and it was possible for one of those taggees to show up here. Some sharks had old transmitters from previous tracking studies still affixed to them, along with other assorted paraphernalia. One shark, a smallish and inexperienced Rat Packer who constantly sidled up to the boat, was laden with so much electronic gear that he came to be known as Radio Shack.
The lone shark vanished thirty minutes later, no one else made a run at the leftovers, and we powered up the whaler to head back to the mother ship. I was driving. And I was starting to get the feel of it, although sometimes when I thought I had shifted into neutral, I was really in reverse. It was the end of a one-attack day, and the sunset was coming on like a determined postcard. I began to relax, but then Peter nudged me conspiratorially. “What do you say we shoot the Gap?”
The Gap was a tiny surge channel between Sugarloaf and Arch Rock passable only when high tide and meek water conditions coincided. Almost never, in other words. Darting through there in the whaler was a high-adrenaline move made purely for sport. Even at its most benign the Gap was white water, and it was a tight fit around the boat. A rogue swell could knock you against the granite on either side.
“Sure,” I said, trying to keep my voice nonchalant. Wimping out was not an option—the two of them had just tagged a great white shark, for crissakes, and Ron had spent most of the day underwater at Shark Alley. I could hold the boat straight for ten seconds.
I was clutching the wheel as I steered into the boiling passage, trying not to be distracted by the one-hundred-foot walls on either side. I felt the sea rumble beneath my feet and lift us on a roller-coaster crest, and then a wave grabbed the whaler and swept us into Fisherman’s Bay as if we were surfing. Pelicans wheeled overhead, while sea lions splashed and barked in the gulches. Just Imagine lay in front of us, bathed in golden and violet light. My hands unclenched. I looked at Kevin, who was wearing his trillion-dollar smile, and I broke out in one too. We twirled in a little eddy. Peter shook my hand. “Congratulations! You are the fifth person ever to shoot the Gap.”
The evening was so lovely that Peter and Kevin decided to stay on the yacht. After less than a week, I was already down to dry goods, pretzels, and the like, whatever didn’t need refrigeration to stay edible. But Peter brought some fillets from an albacore he’d caught, and Kevin cooked them, making a ginger marinade from scratch and sharpening all the kitchen knives by hand. Peter and I sat at the table, drank Sangiovese, and offered moral support.
After watching Ron dive today on what would be the ideal tow-in spot to surf the perfect wave, Peter resumed his talk about getting out there sooner rather than later. This afternoon he’d mentioned it to Ron, who had nodded his approval and said, “I’ve thought about that.” Until that point I hadn’t realized that Ron surfed too, but of course it made perfect sense.
Kevin didn’t say much, but he looked intrigued. He was also a surfer, and he knew exactly which wave Peter was talking about. They were both wearing Maui’s fishhooks around their necks, a Hawaiian symbol that signifies taking the shark as one’s amakua, or spirit animal. Peter leaned back in the banquette with his glass of wine. “I’ve been thinking about it for so long,” he said. “I don’t want someone else to come out here and do it. But I don’t want to rush it, either. If you put out the wrong vibe, then something bad could happen. I want to be in the right space. It’s gotta be done right.”
After dinner we climbed onto the deck and looked out at the squid fleet, which was hovering three hundred yards away. It was disconcerting to see the barren inkiness of the surrounding skies lit up like a switchboard. Suspended from above, the boats’ squid-luring lights shone a cold artificial blaze. Tiny black dots wove in and out of the glare; Peter could tell which specks were gulls and which were cassin’s auklets. A big night of hunting lay ahead; no doubt the curious, ravenous sea lions would be out nosing around, infuriating the fishermen. They often dove right into the nets as the catch was being hauled up, hurriedly eating their fill before attempting last-second Houdini escapes. Sometimes they didn’t make it and got ensnared, like the animal we’d seen last night. When this happened, the sea lions were goners. Yesterday morning one of the interns had discovered one washed ashore: The animal’s head had been shot to pieces. Watching the fleet, I wondered what else besides squid was coming
up in those nets. We’d already seen one dead shark lying on deck—how many more might there be? Flies crawled on us, even in the dark, and we turned to go back into the cabin. As we did, we heard the crack of three gunshots across the water.
IT WAS BROWN’S THIRTY-FIRST BIRTHDAY. AFTER A FEW ROUNDS OF back-and-forth with his better judgment, Peter decided that I could attend the celebration dinner. One little party—and I’d be off the island in a matter of hours. What harm could it do? I figured he’d been feeling sorry for me the past few days, subsisting on Powerbars at sea while everyone else ate home-cooked organic meals onshore. I hadn’t seen Brown or Nat yet, though I’d heard their voices on the radio. They hadn’t made it out to the boat. Not that I blamed them. Just Imagine was starting to smell, and it was taking me down with it. The marine toilet was a nasty piece of business; it constantly exploded on my shoes, and when I attempted to pump the graywater, reaching into the sea chest, it exploded on my shirt. Meanwhile, the red sludge had put in several more appearances. I was beginning to get it: Just Imagine was not happy to be here. Like a furniture-gnawing pet left with a sitter while its owner was on vacation, the yacht was expressing its displeasure in passive-aggressive ways.
Peter rowed Tubby across Fisherman’s Bay toward the island while I crouched unsteadily in front, resisting the urge to look over the side for signs of the Sisterhood—telltale shadows, say, or boils the size of trucks. The one time I did not wish to see a twenty-foot-long apparition was while sitting in Tubby. I stared at the rocks, thinking of the stories I’d read about great white shark teeth found embedded in the hulls of small boats. There wasn’t much conversation. Peter was bent forward in concentration, hauling on the oars. Flies clustered on his legs.
As we neared the island, I was reminded again that by allowing me to step ashore, he was putting a lot on the line. Technically, as long as I stayed on Just Imagine I wasn’t here illegally, though Peter still wasn’t anxious to call attention to my presence. After all, both the U.S. Fish and Wildlife officers and the PRBO directors knew me. I’d met them all; they’d given me one of their coveted overnight permits only last month, and by now I was supposed to be back home, hunched over my computer churning out stories about the Brandt’s cormorant population. For me to be anywhere near this island during shark season had been expressly forbidden. Forget about becoming part of the crew.
In Peter’s mind, however, the fact that I’d received a prior permit meant that no one would object to a bit of an addendum. I wasn’t so sure, and I was nervous. Things were wound far more tightly now than they had been on my first visit. I didn’t want to cause trouble. But I suppose I didn’t want that badly enough to stay on the sailboat.
As we neared the narrow gulley that marked North Landing, I prepared to jump onto the rocks with a rope. Even though the water wasn’t overly choppy and the swells weren’t out of hand, it was still critical to time the waves correctly. Jump too early, and you’d end up in the drink. Jump too late, and you’d end up in the drink as Tubby and Peter flipped over onto the rocks. Lacking experience with precision movements on algae-coated slickrock, I skidded and impaled my leg on a pointy outcropping. But I made it, and while I tied off a line, Peter wrassled Tubby onto the shore.
A steep cliff rose from the foot of the landing. This was the backside of Lighthouse Hill. No convenient switchback path here, though. A full, vertigo-inducing neck tilt was required to scan the expanse of crags between North Landing and the Light. The only route was straight up; the only takers would be mountain goats with suction-cup feet or eggers who’d drawn the short straw. Gulls glared sullenly from ledges.
We walked to the house down a thread of a path, beaten into the stone. I felt grateful to be on land, and the smell of guano and warm earth and heavy moisture seemed almost soothing. Now that breeding season was over, there were fewer seabirds here, but that’s like saying there are fewer cars on the San Diego freeway when it’s not rush hour. Without chicks the gulls were noticeably mellower, less likely to draw blood, and the hard hats had been put away until next spring. Still, I worked my peripheral vision to check for any suspicious movements aimed at my head. Two hundred yards away, a posse of birds jetted past the cliff. Peter, who had been expounding on the strengths and weaknesses of the Giants’ infield, stopped midsentence and said, “Puffin with a bone-head sculpin in its mouth.” He pointed to a blurry Coke can–sized object as it hurtled in front of the rocks. I could barely make out the puffin, never mind identify the species of baitfish it was carrying. Sightings were rare to begin with. The entire island population numbered only 120 tufted puffins, down from 2,000 in the early nineties.
As weatherworn as it was, the house glowed in the incandescent light of dusk. Kevin sat in the workroom, surrounded by tags, typing on a computer. His desk faced a window with a panoramic view of Mirounga Bay and beyond, to an infinity of ocean where gray, blue, and humpback whales were feeding, throwing off impressive geysers. In the kitchen, Mark, a tall, affable intern from Louisiana, was cooking dinner. A vat of spaghetti sauce simmered on the stove.
Brown and Nat were out somewhere, and Peter took their absence as an opportunity to hunt for a birthday present. Pickings were slim, to say the least. Maybe for Brown’s birthday he’d get a three-minute shower, which he could take navy-style, shutting off the water while he was lathering, or an elephant seal skull that someone came across, or an extra beer. But Peter had a private stash of memorabilia he’d amassed over the decades, and it was in this tangle of stuff that he hoped to find a worthy and meaningful gift. We walked next door to the coast guard house, where he pulled out a crate filled with photographs and feathers and assorted other flotsam, the kind of memento stockpile that you find in attics. He began to rifle through it. “A lure? Nah, he doesn’t like fishing.” Peter was especially fond of Brown and had acted as a kind of mentor to him. They were a generation apart, but the things they shared—sharks, baseball, surfing, birds, and, of course, this place—vastly outweighed their differences. The main points of contention were technological: Peter’s insistence on using DOS-era computer programs to store data, for instance, and his reluctance to adopt digital video for filming the sharks. As a result, Brown often found himself bent over software manuals from the seventies and eighties, trying to unlearn every bit of user interface progress from the past ten years, or patching together shark images from diverse sources on the Farallones’ ancient computer equipment. He kept a healthy sense of humor about it, but you could tell he’d rather not have to.
Peter thumbed quickly through a thick batch of pictures. “Lots and lots of shark attack stuff,” he said dismissively. His wedding photos were mixed in there too, along with endless bird images and shots of various seals and sea lions missing gaping hunks of flesh and looking stunned. “Oh, here’s a Steller’s sea lion with a big bite out of its chest.” I couldn’t put the pictures down, but in his opinion, none of them was special enough to mark the occasion. “I used to have more things I found in the tide pools,” he said. “If you want, we can go to one of my secret spots to look for elephant seal teeth.” I looked at Peter, bent over underneath his omnipresent Giants cap hunting through his box of nature souvenirs, like a kid showing another kid something cool in his treehouse. These islands, I realized, were his sacred hideout—both spiritually and literally. One time, I’d asked him if there was anything about the Farallones that he didn’t like. I imagined he’d take the opening to complain about the weather, or the lack of hot water, or some other gripe. Instead he’d frowned, and gaped at me like I was sort of slow. “No,” he answered without hesitation. “Why would there be?”
It dawned on me that Peter took any criticism of this place almost as a personal insult. One time I’d overheard him telling Brown that he loved the island, which he often referred to as “the rock,” more than life itself. And he’d declared it like a sworn truth, and not with any kind of exaggerated drama. Ten years ago during seabird breeding season, the marine operator had hailed the Farallones wi
th an urgent message for Peter; he was patched through to his mother, Leilani, in Honolulu. His younger brother, Lew, who had been struggling with leukemia, had “moved on,” she said. The news wasn’t entirely unexpected, but that didn’t make it any less wrenching. When Peter and Lew had spoken the week before, his parting words had been “Hang in there.” Suddenly, that sentiment seemed flip, inadequate. Peter climbed to the murre blind and sat there for the rest of the day. When the coast guard offered to helicopter him off the island, he declined; it would be several days before he could face the mainland.
After another fifteen minutes of rummaging, he settled on a framed photograph of Bitehead majestically cruising in profile. We wrapped the present in an old newspaper and headed down to dinner.
Nat was in the kitchen, making the last adjustments to Brown’s birthday cake. So were the other two interns, Kristie and Elias. Fine-boned and alert, Kristie spoke in a singsong voice that reminded me of a bird itself. Elias was smallish and rugged-looking, with a full beard. He seemed laid-back, except on the subject of birds. Earlier, I’d overheard him ask, in a tight, urgent voice: “Excuse me, Peter? Can I bother you about the molting strategies of pigeon guillemots?”
Brown sat at the head of the table, sunburned, wearing a UPS T-shirt that said, “What Can Brown Do For You?” His ponytail was gone now, but he still didn’t look anywhere near thirty-one. Kristie and Kevin were setting out the silverware, and Peter was opening the wine, and the rest of us were just about to sit down when Nat said, “Oh, I’d better let the bats out.”
During the day, hoary bats slept in the three trees near the houses and could be plucked out like fruit. Hoary bats are almost as tough to study as great white sharks; they’re equally elusive, even though they range widely throughout the boreal forests of North America. But unlike many bat species, which will cluster by the millions in a single cave, hoary bats are happy-go-lucky hoboes, traveling solo, stopping to rest wherever and whenever the urge hits, and not even bothering to nest. To find them at all required a full-out scavenger hunt, except at these islands, where bats that flew off course in their migrations stopped by regularly, just like the land birds. This made chiropterists—bat scientists—crazy to come here, to spend time with hoary bats as they could nowhere else. Since that wasn’t possible, Nat and Brown had begun to monitor the bats, taking snips of their fur, watching their behaviors, counting and weighing them. The information would then be dispersed to the bat community.