The Log from the Sea of Cortez

by Steinbeck, John; Astro, Richard

  We had known that sooner or later we must develop an explanation for what we were doing which would be short and convincing. It couldn’t be the truth because that wouldn’t be convincing at all. How can you say to a people who are preoccupied with getting enough food and enough children that you have come to pick up useless little animals so that perhaps your world picture will be enlarged? That didn’t even convince us. But there had to be a story, for everyone asked us. One of us had once taken a long walking trip through the southern United States. At first he had tried to explain that he did it because he liked to walk and because he saw and felt the country better that way. When he gave this explanation there was unbelief and dislike for him. It sounded like a lie. Finally a man said to him, “You can’t fool me, you’re doing it on a bet.” And after that, he used this explanation, and everyone liked and understood him from then on. So with these men we developed our story and stuck to it thereafter. We were collecting curios, we said. These beautiful little animals and shells, while they abounded so greatly here as to be valueless, had, because of their scarcity in the United States, a certain value. They would not make us rich but it was at least profitable to take them. And besides, we liked taking them. Once we had developed this story we never had any more trouble. They all understood us then, and brought us what they thought were rare articles for the collection. They considered that we might get very rich. Thank heaven they do not know that when at last we came back to San Diego the customs fixed a value on our thousands of pickled animals of five dollars. We hope these Indians never find it out; we would go down steeply in their estimations.

  Our men went away finally a trifle intoxicated, but not forgetting to take an armload of empty tomato cans. They value tin cans very highly.

  It would not have done to sail for La Paz harbor that night, for the pilot has short hours and any boat calling for him out of his regular hours must pay double. But we wanted very much to get to La Paz; we were out of beer and already the water in our tanks was stale-tasting. It had seemed to us that it was stale when we put it in and time did not improve it. It isn’t likely that we would have died of thirst. The second or third day would undoubtedly have seen us drinking the unpleasant stuff. But there were other reasons why we longed for La Paz. Cape San Lucas had not really been a town, and our crew had convinced itself that it had been a very long time out of touch with civilization. In civilization we think they included some items which, if anything, are attenuated in highly civilized groups. In addition, there is the genuine fascination of the city of La Paz. Everyone in the area knows the greatness of La Paz. You can get anything in the world there, they say. It is a huge place—not of course so monstrous as Guaymas or Mazatlán, but beautiful out of all comparison. The Indians paddle hundreds of miles to be at La Paz on a feast day. It is a proud thing to have been born in La Paz, and a cloud of delight hangs over the distant city from the time when it was the great pearl center of the world. The robes of the Spanish kings and the stoles of bishops in Rome were stiff with the pearls from La Paz. There’s a magic-carpet sound to the name, anyway. And it is an old city, as cities in the West are old, and very venerable in the eyes of Indians of the Gulf. Guaymas is busier, they say, and Mazatlán gayer, perhaps, but La Paz is antigua.

  The Gulf and Gulf ports have always been unfriendly to colonization. Again and again attempts were made before a settlement would stick. Humans are not much wanted on the Peninsula. But at La Paz the pearl oysters drew men from all over the world. And, as in all concentrations of natural wealth, the terrors of greed were let loose on the city again and again. An event which happened at La Paz in recent years is typical of such places. An Indian boy by accident found a pearl of great size, an unbelievable pearl. He knew its value was so great that he need never work again. In his one pearl he had the ability to be drunk as long as he wished, to marry any one of a number of girls, and to make many more a little happy too. In his great pearl lay salvation, for he could in advance purchase masses sufficient to pop him out of Purgatory like a squeezed watermelon seed. In addition he could shift a number of dead relatives a little nearer to Paradise. He went to La Paz with his pearl in his hand and his future clear into eternity in his heart. He took his pearl to a broker and was offered so little that he grew angry, for he knew he was cheated. Then he carried his pearl to another broker and was offered the same amount. After a few more visits he came to know that the brokers were only the many hands of one head and that he could not sell his pearl for more. He took it to the beach and hid it under a stone, and that night he was clubbed into unconsciousness and his clothing was searched. The next night he slept at the house of a friend and his friend and he were injured and bound and the whole house searched. Then he went inland to lose his pursuers and he was waylaid and tortured. But he was very angry now and he knew what he must do. Hurt as he was he crept back to La Paz in the night and he skulked like a hunted fox to the beach and took out his pearl from under the stone. Then he cursed it and threw it as far as he could into the channel. He was a free man again with his soul in danger and his food and shelter insecure. And he laughed a great deal about it.

  This seems to be a true story, but it is so much like a parable that it almost can’t be. This Indian boy is too heroic, too wise. He knows too much and acts on his knowledge. In every way, he goes contrary to human direction. The story is probably true, but we don’t believe it; it is far too reasonable to be true.

  La Paz, the great city, was only a little way from us now, we could almost see its towers and smell its perfume. And it was right that it should be so hidden here out of the world, inaccessible except to the galleons of a small boy’s imagination.

  While we were anchored at Espíritu Santo Island a black yacht went by swiftly, and on her awninged after-deck ladies and gentlemen in white clothing sat comfortably. We saw they had tall cool drinks beside them and we hated them a little, for we were out of beer. And Tiny said fiercely, “Nobody but a pansy’d sail on a thing like that.” And then more gently, “But I’ve never been sure I ain’t queer.” The yacht went down over the horizon, and up over the horizon climbed an old horror of a cargo ship, dirty and staggering. And she stumbled on toward the channel of La Paz; her pumps must have been going wide open. Later, at La Paz, we saw her very low in the water in the channel. We said to a man on the beach, “She is sinking.” And he replied calmly, “She always sinks.”

  On the Western Flyer, vanity had set in. Clothing was washed unmercifully. The white tops of caps were laundered, and jeans washed and patted smooth while wet and hung from the stays to dry. Shoes were even polished and the shaving and bathing were deafening. The sweet smell of unguents and hair oils, of deodorants and lotions, filled the air. Hair was cut and combed; the mirror over the washstand behind the deckhouse was in constant use. We regarded ourselves in the mirror with the long contemplative coy looks of chorus girls about to go on stage. What we found was not good, but it was the best we had. Heaven knows what we expected to find in La Paz, but we wanted to be beautiful for it.

  And in the morning, when we got under way, we washed the fish blood off the decks and put away the equipment. We coiled the lines in lovely spirals and washed all the dishes. It seemed to us we made a rather gallant show, and we hoped that no beautiful yacht was anchored in La Paz. If there were a yacht, we would be tough and seafaring, but if no such contrast was available some of us at least proposed to be not a little jaunty. Even the least naive of us expected Spanish ladies in high combs and mantillas to be promenading along the beach. It would be rather like the opening scene of a Hollywood production of Life in Latin America, with dancers in the foreground and cabaret tables upstage from which would rise a male chorus to sing “I met my love in La Paz—satin and Latin she was.”

  We assembled on top of the deckhouse, the Coast Pilot open in front of us. Even Tony had succumbed; he wore a gaudy white seaman’s cap with a gold ornament on the front of it which seemed to be a combination of field artillery and submarin
e service, except that it had an arrow-pierced heart superimposed on it.

  We have so often admired the literary style and quality of the Coast Pilot that it might be well here to quote from it. In the first place, the compilers of this book are cynical men. They know that they are writing for morons, that if by any effort their descriptions can be misinterpreted or misunderstood by the reader, that effort will be made. These writers have a contempt for almost everything. They would like an ocean and a coastline unchanging and unchangeable ; lights and buoys that do not rust and wash away; winds and storms that come at specified times; and, finally, reasonably intelligent men to read their instructions. They are gratified in none of these desires. They try to write calmly and objectively, but now and then a little bitterness creeps in, particularly when they deal with Mexican lights, buoys, and port facilities. The following quotation is from H. O. No. 84, “Sailing Directions for the West Coasts of Mexico and Central America, 1937, Corrections to January 1940,” page 125, under “La Paz Harbor.”

  La Paz Harbor is that portion of La Paz Channel between the eastern end of El Mogote and the shore in the vicinity of La Paz. El Mogote is a low, sandy, bush-covered peninsula, about 6 miles long, east and west, and 1½ miles wide at its widest part, that forms the northern side of Ensenada de Anpe, a large lagoon. This lagoon lies in a low plain that is covered with a thick growth of trees, bushes, and cactus. The water is shoal over the greater part of the lagoon, but a channel in which there are depths of 2 to 4 fathoms leads from La Paz Harbor to its northwestern part.

  La Paz Harbor is ½ to ¾ mile wide, but it is nearly filled with shoals through which there is a winding channel with depths of 3 to 4 fathoms. A shoal with depths of only 1 to 8 feet over it extends northward from the eastern end of El Mogote to within 400 yards of Prieta Point and thus protects La Paz Harbor from the seas caused by northwesterly winds.

  La Paz Channel, leading between the shoal just mentioned and the mainland, and extending from Prieta Point to abreast the town of La Paz, has a length of about 3½ miles and a least charted depth of 3¼ fathoms, but this depth can not be depended upon. Vessels of 13-foot draft may pass through the channel at any stage of the tide. The channel is narrow, with steep banks on either side, the water in some places shoaling from 3 fathoms to 3 or 4 feet within a distance of 20 yards. The deep water of the channel and the projecting points of the shoals on either side can readily be distinguished from aloft. In 1934 the controlling depth in the channel was reported to be 16 feet.

  A 9-foot channel, frequently used by coasters, leads across the shoal bank and into La Paz Channel at a position nearly 1 mile south-southeastward of Prieta Point. Caymancito Rock, on the eastern side of La Paz Channel, bearing 129°, leads through this side channel.

  Beacons—Off Prieta Point, at the entrance to the channel leading to La Paz, there are three beacons consisting of lengths of 3-inch pipe driven into the bottom and extending only a few feet above the surface of the water. They are difficult to make out at high tide in the daytime, and are not lighted at night [here the hatred creeps in subtly].

  Light Beacons—Three pairs of concrete range beacons, from each of which a light is shown, mark La Paz Channel. The outer range is situated on the shore near the entrance to the channel, about 1 mile southeastward of Prieta Point; the middle range is on a hillside about ¼ mile south-southeastward of Caymancito Rock; and the inner range is situated about ¾ mile northeastward of the municipal pier at La Paz, ...

  Harbor Lights—A light is shown from a wooden post 18 feet high and another from a post 20 feet high on the north and south ends, respectively, of the T-head of the municipal pier at La Paz....

  Anchorage—Vessels waiting for a pilot can anchor southward of Prieta Point in depths of 7 to 10 fathoms. Anchorage can also be taken northward of El Mogote, but it is exposed to wind and sea....

  The best berth off the town is 200 to 300 yards westward of the pier in a depth of about 3½ fathoms, sand....

  Pilotage is compulsory for all foreign merchant vessels. Pilots come out in a small motor launch carrying a white flag on which is the letter P, and board incoming vessels in the vicinity of Prieta Point. Although pilots will take vessels in at night, it is not advisable to attempt to enter the harbor after dark.

  This is a good careful description by men whose main drive is toward accuracy, and they must be driven frantic as man and tide and wave undermine their work. The shifting sands of the channel; the three-inch pipe driven into the bottom; the T-head municipal pier with its lights on wooden posts, none of which has been there for some time; and, last, their conviction that the pilots cannot find the channel at night, make for their curious, cold, tactful statement. We trust these men. They are controlled, and only now and then do their nerves break and a cry of pain escape them thus, in the “Supplement” dated 1940:

  Page 109, Line 1, for “LIGHTS” read “LIGHT” and for “TWO LIGHTS ARE” read “WHEN THE CANNERY IS IN OPERATION, A LIGHT IS.”

  Or again:

  Page 149, Line 2, after “line” add: “two piers project inward from this mole, affording berths for vessels and, except alongside these two piers, the mole is foul with debris and wrecked cranes. ”

  These coast pilots are constantly exasperated; they are not happy men. When anything happens they are blamed, and their writing takes on an austere tone because of it. No matter how hard they work, the restlessness of nature and the carelessness of man are always two jumps ahead of them.

  We ran happily up under Prieta Point as suggested, and dropped anchor and put up the American flag and under it the yellow quarantine flag. We would have liked to fire a gun, but we had only the ten-gauge shotgun, and its hammer was rusted down. It was only for a show of force anyway; we had never intended it for warlike purposes. And then we sat and waited. The site was beautiful—the highland of Prieta Point and a tower on the hillside. In the distance we could see the beach of La Paz, and it really looked like a Hollywood production, the fine, low buildings close down to the water and trees flanking them and a colored bandstand on the water’s edge. The little canoes of Nayarit sailed by, and the sea was ruffled with a fair breeze. We took some color motion pictures of the scene, but they didn’t come out either.

  After what seemed a very long time, the little launch mentioned in the Coast Pilot started for us. But it had no white flag with the letter “P.” Like the municipal pier, that was gone. The pilot, an elderly man in a business suit and a dark hat, came stiffly aboard. He had great dignity. He refused a drink, accepted cigarettes, took his position at the wheel, and ordered us on grandly. He looked like an admiral in civilian clothes. He governed Tex with a sensitive hand—a gentle push forward against the air meant “ahead.” A flattened hand patting downward signified “slow.” A quick thumb over the shoulder, “reverse.” He was not a talkative man, and he ran us through the channel with ease, hardly scraping us at all, and signaled our anchor down 250 yards westward of the municipal pier—if there had been one—the choicest place in the harbor.

  La Paz grew in fascination as we approached. The square, iron-shuttered colonial houses stood up right in back of the beach with rows of beautiful trees in front of them. It is a lovely place. There is a broad promenade along the water lined with benches, named for dead residents of the city, where one may rest oneself.

  Soon after we had anchored, the port captain, customs man, and agent came aboard. The captain read our papers, which complimented us rather highly, and was so impressed that he immediately assigned us an armed guard—or, rather, three shifts of armed guards-to protect us from theft. At first we did not like this, since we had to pay these men, but we soon found the wisdom of it. For we swarmed with visitors from morning to night; little boys clustered on us like flies, in the rigging and on the deck. And although we were infested and crawling with very poor people and children, we lost nothing; and this in spite of the fact that there were little gadgets lying about that any one of us would have stolen if we had had the chance. T
he guards simply kept our visitors out of the galley and out of the cabin. But we do not think they prevented theft, for in other ports where we had no guard nothing was stolen.

  The guards, big pleasant men armed with heavy automatics, wore uniforms that were starched and clean, and they were helpful and sociable. They ate with us and drank coffee with us and told us many valuable things about the town. And in the end we gave each of them a carton of cigarettes, which seemed valuable to them. But they were the reverse of what is usually thought and written of Mexican soldiers—they were clean, efficient, and friendly.

  With the port captain came the agent, probably the finest invention of all. He did everything for us, provisioned us, escorted us, took us to dinner, argued prices for us in local stores, warned us about some places and recommended others. His fee was so small that we doubled it out of pure gratitude.