The Log from the Sea of Cortez is a non-fiction travelogue by John Steinbeck originally published in 1941. The work is a first-hand account in which Steinbeck details a marine biology expedition he undertook alongside his close friend and marine biologist, Ed Ricketts. The Western Flyer, the crew’s vessel, departed Monterey Bay, California on March 11, 1940, marking the start of the six-week long journey. The aim was to travel down the coast of Baja California and into the Sea of Cortez (Gulf of California), collecting marine specimens and recording anything encountered along the way. The Log came to include observations of marine life, weather patterns, indigenous people inhabiting the area, and more. As it progresses, Steinbeck’s and Ricketts’ own ideas are naturally incorporated into the writing through profound discussion of philosophy, biology, nature, and applications to their own lives and the world around them.
Steinbeck opens by describing the difficulty in organizing an expedition, especially when it comes to finding an available yet effective vessel and a reliable captain and crew. Despite the initial struggle, the search proves fruitful as a strong team eventually comes together. The Captain is Tony Berry, a man who keeps a very clean and functional boat, and is primarily concerned with always being right and rejecting wrongness in any form. “Tex” Travis is hired as the mechanic, and is described as “a sure man with an engine” (Steinbeck, 17). Lastly, “Tiny” Colletto and “Sparky” Enea serve simply as seamen, as well as fishermen and cooks. The voyage is relaxed and has more of an emphasis on safety than adventure, as they want to get their job done within the charter’s time constraint while simultaneously satisfying their “wide and horizonless” (Steinbeck, 1) curiosity to the best of their abilities.
The ship sails all day and all night, only stopping to refuel in San Diego. Once their papers are examined and they visit the small cannery town of Cabo San Lucas, they sail on into the Sea of Cortez. They stop periodically at reefs and shores to collect marine organisms, which they properly preserve and accurately label along the way. Although spending most of the time at sea, they enjoy exploring port towns and meeting and learning from the indigenous people there.
Nearing the end, they travel to the Agiabampo Lagoon and then to the San Gabriel Bay. There, the final collection is conducted, and they set course for home, the expedition coming to an official close on April 20, 1940. The expedition was successful as the crew catalogued over 500 species and discovered 50 new species. Yet still, they felt as if they had gained so much more than that, on a personal and spiritual level. During the voyage, they were able to leave behind the worries of everyday life and the escalating war. In the process, they were able to enrich themselves and adopt new ways of perceiving life, time, and beauty.
Perhaps one of the most interesting aspects of the book is the way in which the relationship between the characters and the ocean is portrayed. Steinbeck’s perspective on the marine organisms he examines is strongly impacted by the way in which he perceives humans as a species. He is constantly anthropomorphizing marine organisms, or in other words, giving them human characteristics. Even more interesting, however, is that he does the opposite, in that he gives humans the characteristics of invertebrate marine animals as well. For example, he compares a marine biologist to a starfish; the scientist is branching out in various directions and expanding different ideas and thoughts in the same way the starfish is physically built to be reaching in all different directions. On a deeper level, Steinbeck sees marine origins in humans and believes that traits from one species can be viewed in any other. This ties into both Steinbeck’s and Ricketts’ overarching philosophical point that everything is part of one bigger whole. This idea furthers that the whole is reflected in each of the different parts. Steinbeck draws on this by discussing the contrast between teleological thinking and non-teleological thinking. In short, the former is concerned with finding a specific cause and effect, and focusing on the way things ‘should’ be, while the latter mindset aims to zoom out of the details and approach things as a larger whole, and understanding them in that context instead. This philosophy is applied to Steinbeck’s wider view of the ocean and how it operates as a system. In terms of collection, he says how the species that are more common are more important than those that are rare, contrary to what one would normally think. This is because if a widely found species like phytoplankton were to disappear, a huge food source for a great number of organisms in the ocean would be lost, as they are the base of the foodweb (Glass, Lecture 13), thereby disrupting the whole system since one thing is inevitably influenced by everything else. This raises the idea that in nature, we are all interconnected and essentially, we are all one thing.
Steinbeck perceives the ocean to be something of endless wonder, and he seems to receive a sense of inspiration being out at sea. The setting of the novel is particularly important as it is written in the midst of the Second World War. Steinbeck often comments on the war, which he views as very awful and gruesome, and believes that it has negative consequences on society as a whole. However, his expedition served as a sort of escape from this unfortunate reality. He describes the expedition as a “dreaming sleep” (Steinbeck, 200) in which he and his crew is able to avoid the true nightmare that is war and instead live in a state of blissful ignorance for six weeks. In this way, the ocean serves as a sort of safe haven for Steinbeck; it’s almost as if when he thinks of the sea, he could only possibly think benevolent thoughts: no fear of war or the everyday inconveniences of life, spending time with one of his best friends, exploring the ocean and doing something he genuinely loves. The purpose of the expedition, as Steinbeck admits, is to fulfill feelings of curiosity, and in short, to understand the world better. With that goal in mind, and the course of action taken to accomplish that goal (going on the expedition), Steinbeck clearly thinks of earth’s waters as an ideal place for exploration, and a superb opportunity to learn more. One of the most striking ways Steinbeck shows his love for the ocean is through his diction, and the way in which he describes the marine creatures he encounters. There is a wide array of organisms mentioned, such as dolphins, or “beautiful fish of pure gold,” (Steinbeck, 42), “a most delicious fish” (69) called skipjack, and “porcelain crabs” (221). This colorful language used to describe the diversity within the ocean really emphasizes Steinbeck’s love for the sea, which is made up of individual, unique parts that ultimately make up a more intricate whole.
Still, Steinbeck acknowledges that life at sea, and the ocean in general, is not always defined by serenity. When talking about the Sea-Cow, the skiff’s outboard motor, he points out that there are times when the sea can be turbulent. In this context, he is rebuking the Sea-Cow which only functions when the weather is calm, and refuses to at the worst times. Steinbeck continues his trend of personifying inanimate objects by treating the engine as a stubborn individual who only does work when convenient. His view of such selective action has an undeniable negative connotation, and he seems to think of the Sea-Cow as weak and irritable. Steinbeck acknowledges that there are hardships in life, especially in a life in/on water, but it is up to each individual to handle it properly. For example, he states that species that live in cold, rocky waters with strong currents evolve to be stronger and more able, which is a more respectable and efficient way to live.
Tony Berry, the Western Flyer’s captain, is arguably just as connected to the ocean as Steinbeck is, but simply in a different way. He is a man of precision and values order. He is deft with his ship and has developed vital navigational skills through ample experience and numerous research expeditions. Through this extensive time spent at sea, he mastered being a captain. It was as if he was one with his boat. He knew how to handle impromptu circumstances and changing conditions. He navigates the waters carefully, especially when he is unfamiliar with the area and the shore is not visible. He feels uneasy when the true shape of the shore cannot be fully made out. One would then assume that he found comfort on land, but it is actually the opposite. While on the expedition, he was reluctant to join the other men when they explored the port towns because he is not trusting of people foreign to him, an unintentionally symbolic action, or rather inaction, that shows his comfort onboard his vessel and in the sea. Tex, the ship’s engineer, has a relationship not with the ocean, but with boat engines. He has a cordial relationship with the diesel engine, but a hostile relationship with the outboard motor. He joins Tiny and Sparky on their adventures when on shore, but is anxious to return home where he will soon get married. Tiny and Sparky seem to have strong links to both the ocean and land. Not only do they enjoy exploring new towns and the people there, but they are skilled and accomplished in their maritime backgrounds. They are the fishermen on the expedition, and they are both usually preoccupied with fishing. However, their feelings towards killing the fish differs: Tiny loves to fish but tries to avoid causing the fish any pain, while Sparky enjoys harpooning marine animals such as manta-rays, although he is usually unsuccessful in his attempts. The ocean-character relationship is most prevalent with Steinbeck as we hear a first-person account and his feelings directly, and therefore Ricketts by default (he clumps the two of them together), but it can be argued that the other crew members’ relationships with the engines/the fish shows a different layer of this same kind of relationship but simply in a more indirect manner.
Steinbeck’s relationship with the sea is a complex one that he consistently portrays in his work, and not just in The Log from the Sea of Cortez. Steinbeck always had a close connection to the ocean, not only emotionally, but physically. He grew up near Lake Tahoe and did some of his first writing there. His first novel, Cup of Gold, was set in Panama, which he had never visited. This is not his best work, as his best always came about when it had a personal connection to him. That’s why when he moved to the coast of California, still being close to water, and began writing about Monterey, his work significantly improved. One of his most well-known works is The Pearl, a novella published in 1947. It was set in La Paz, Mexico and told a story of a poor family. Kino, the protagonist, was a diver who lived a content life until his son was stung by a scorpion. Kino and his wife, Juana, did not have the financial means to receive sufficient medical treatment for their son, so their first instinct was to take their family canoe and go out to sea in an attempt of finding a pearl that could be sold for good money, and in turn save their son’s life. In this story, the ocean is treated as a solution and a place of hope and potential for Kino and his family. Although the novella did not have a happy ending, it still serves as an example of Steinbeck’s portrayal as the ocean as a place of no limits– similar to how he describes it in The Log from the Sea of Cortez.
The Log from the Sea of Cortez is an extremely important and useful book in terms of modern-day marine biology, and more specifically, in understanding the change in the ocean as time progresses. In 2004, Chuck Baxter, a retired Stanford University marine biology professor, along with his friends from Monterey, decided to retrace Steinbeck’s and Ricketts’ 1940 expedition. When Baxter and his team reached Coronado Island, they reported that the tide pools were rich in biological activity, yet when Steinbeck described those very same pools a few decades early, he noted that they were biologically poor. Alternatively, Steinbeck reported that Cabo San Lucas was bustling with marine life, but now, it has deteriorated because of overfishing and shellfish harvesting, as well as from pollution (Weiss, 2004). It has been universally accepted that the Gulf of California has undergone a striking decline in sea life since Steinbeck’s era. However, it was not until the end of Baxter’s trip that his crew realized the extent to which this was true. They did not see manta rays, sea turtles, or sharks, all of which Steinbeck and Ricketts had encountered. Given that the Log was so detail-oriented, it was easy to see these similarities and differences in the marine life within the Gulf, and more, to see how empty the sea has become. It is still important to note that the Sea of Cortez was not in its natural condition when the Western Flyer carried out its voyage. Primarily, most of the pearl oysters were already lacking, as they had created a huge industry that enriched the town of La Paz (Weiss, 2004).
Throughout his lifetime, Steinbeck undeniably developed a strong relationship with the ocean and the world around him. Naturally, his writings came to reflect this relationship, specifically in The Log from the Sea of Cortez. Steinbeck, Ricketts, and the rest of the crew aboard the Western Flyer, showed their various connections to the ocean in their own individual ways, but nonetheless, were able to expand upon it on the six-week journey through the Gulf of California. This novel has had long-lasting impacts on our society not only through scientific findings and great contributions to the world of marine biology, but through philosophical thoughts and thorough discussions of war, peace, beauty, and nature.