Breaking Through: Essays, Journals, and Travelogues of Edward F. Ricketts

Chapter 6. “Verbatim Transcription of Notes of Gulf of California Trip, March–April 1940”

This collection of notes consists of forty-six, single-spaced typed pages documenting the Sea of Cortez expedition, as well a two-page addendum called “Statement of Collecting Stations in the Spring 1940” that lists coordinates and topographical information for each collecting stop. The “Verbatim Transcription” details every aspect of the trip; passages describe incidents and locations and list the specimens collected and weather conditions. The typescript also presents Ricketts’s personal observations and reflections about everything from scientific work, including his remarks on collecting methods and wildlife; to local culture, including in particular his observations about the friendliness of Mexicans they encountered; to interpersonal relationships among the crew, including humorous incidents involving mishaps on board their boat, the Western Flyer. But most significantly, the record of the trip itself is both a scientific log documenting the more than four thousand miles they traversed and the twenty-five collecting stations they investigated, and an extended philosophical essay on Ricketts’s and Steinbeck’s musings about holism and transcendence. The two were immensely proud of their trip, and their study is still regarded as being among the most comprehensive scientific studies of the region. But the transcript’s greater significance exceeds scientific accomplishment: a work blending storytelling and science , it details their combined ecological and philosophical perspective, a venture unique in its time and exemplary today. It sets aside the artifichapter 6 “Verbatim Transcription of Notes of Gulf of California Trip, March–April 1940” 134 Figure 11. First entry of Ricketts’s Sea of Cortez log, in his “Post Fire Notebook VII.” Courtesy of Ed Ricketts Jr. cial boundaries between categories of knowledge (taxonomy, for example ) and includes observations about how we humans live and perceive as part of a much larger whole. • • • • • • • • • Mch. 11: Tony Berry, captain. Tex Travis, engineer. Sparky Enea, seaman and cook. Tiny Colletto, seaman. Purse seiner, Western Flyer, 76′, 25′ beam, 165 horsepower Atlas Imperial diesel engine, direct reversible ; 20′ skiff, 10′ skiff. John, Carol, Toby [Webster Street] to San Diego only, myself. Out into fair weather but sufficiently pitchy and rolly so that Carol was sick until well into the night and Tony was tired. Jon was OK and I miraculously stayed with it. First night, a few porpoises. Many schools of fish off San Luis Obispo. A few sardines. But mostly bait fish, as proven by spotlight. Mch. 12: Following am, smooth to the point of oiliness, running thru Santa Barbara Channel. Many porpoises. Boys were very tired and ragged, only scanty and few hours sleep, especially Tony. Last night, I was talking with Tony about how funny it was that waves off a headland were always higher than elsewhere, even tho we might be several miles off; thus: 136 “Verbatim Transcription” Figure 12. Original sketch from the “Verbatim Transcription” illustrating the idea that “the point draws the waves.” Courtesy of Ed Ricketts Jr. He said, “The point draws the waves.” I thought it a good primitive statement of the relation between receiver and giver. The relation is through waves a—a—a—a, etc., each of which is connected by torsion to its inshore fellow and touches it enough, although it has gone before, to be affected by its torsion, and so on and on into shore, the last wave of all actually touching and breaking upon the shore. I was thinking also that steering a boat is an objectification of what I have waveringly and at last come to know of ways of living. Steering a boat by compass in heavy seas is for me difficult, exacting, and, at first anyway, uncertain work. But the choice involves only two alternatives; that is, when you try to keep the needle steady—it swinging in a variable arc from 2 to 10˚—and when you forget which way to turn the wheel in order to make the compass card swing back where you want it, you can push the wheel only two ways, either left or right (there are only 2 alternatives, yet you can get mixed up even there, or rather I can!). The fact that there is a lag, and the boat may be swinging so rapidly in one direction that no matter how rapidly you push the wheel correctingly, the needle still continues to swing the wrong way, complicates things when you’re tired. I remember only, doggedly, that (going S), no matter how the boat and the compass...