Spring Break, Day 2: The Sea of Cortez

Where was I? Oh yes, the Sea of Cortez. Just to help you visualize what I am trying to describe, let me give you some more data. The sea is young (less than 5 million years old-- a toddler in sea years). It is 900 miles long, and in the Midriff Channel where we were, the water can be up to a mile deep. In a nutshell, the geology and climate of this area are unique and the result is major upwellings of water, high levels of mixing, and, as a consequence, tons of nutrients to support organisms, which in turn support all kinds of life higher up on the food chain.

In the water, there are invertebrates (including El Diablo Rojo-- the giant man-eating squid, one of which Jesse found washed up on shore), sharks, whales, dolphins, sea turtles, and sea lions, in addition to coral-esque reefs and tons and tons and tons of fish. The largest animal known, the blue whale, lives and breeds here (averaging 75-80 ft long and weighing 110 tons). The largest fish (whale sharks) also live here and can reach over 45 ft long and up to 15 tons. The wildlife in this sea was first described by Ed Ricketts and John Steinbeck in the book The Sea of Cortez (1941), which was part biodiversity survey and part travelogue. The prose is so beautiful, I have pasted the first paragraph from the log below. Overall, I just want you to seed your imagination with these pictures, but then go further to imagine the most spectacular, productive ocean you can possibly envision. That's the setting for Day 2's adventures....
So, Pancho (the mechanic) had gotten all the rocks out of the engine and recharged the dead battery for us and we were ready to get back to work. After the previous day's events, we were hesitant to overload the boat for the longer trip from BLA out to Piojo, the island furthest from the peninsula on which we wanted to find snakes (over 2.5 miles away; bottom right red circle on the map). So we decided to take two trips-- first, we would go over with gear (Michelle, Jesse, and I) and then Michelle and I would come back and get Matt and the dog. This plan seemed perfect. Yes, Piojo was far away and the trip was likely to take well over an hour each way. True, we were traveling through deep channels and choppy seas. Admittedly we did not know exactly how much gas it would take to get there and back. Granted, the boat had broken down just 20 yards offshore the day before, leading to relative mayhem. But none of this eclipsed our desire to go get these snakes. As a precaution, Michelle and I did test drive the boat for about 2 minutes and 30 seconds around the bay. It seemed to work fine! When we were completely loaded up, again we noticed it's power dropped precipitously. No matter! We had accepted the fact that we were going to spend the rest of the day shuttling the expedition across the sea piecemeal, so what if we had to do that a little bit more slowly than originally planned?
And so we set out. Remember the splashing over the bow that I mentioned from Day 1? We had somehow blocked this out, but were acutely reminded of it as soon as we got out of the friendly confines of BLA. Each wave we hit cast an icy spritz of sea water across the three of us, as we shielded our eyes and blindly push forward towards our island target. We were cold though, and I was driving as fast as possible (which was not very fast) in an effort to shorten the amount of time spent shivering, knowing this was trip 1 of 4 I would be making that day. As we got further out into the channel, the waves got bigger. Our little boat was smacking into them like a jet ski at a summer lake weekend-- can you imagine it? Boom, boom, boom-- jarring our individual spinal chords as we braced for splash after splash coming in over the bow. The series of swells themselves got bigger until we were right about in the middle of the channel and we went boom, Boom, BOOM, and the engine stopped. Just as the boat smacked back onto the water, nose down into the upcoming wave, water spilling over the front of the bow, into the small cavity in which we were sitting. My first thought, we are going to sink. But the nose bobbed back up, and the water stopped spilling in. Michelle yelled "Bail bucket!!!" and started furiously scooping up water and throwing it overboard. Jesse suggested now might be a good time to put on our life preservers, so we pulled out the three gigantic, fluorescent orange old school life jackets from the hold and put them on. We tried to turn the key in the engine, and heard bupkes (that's yiddish for absolutely nothing). I asked where the paddles were so we could start paddling against the current which was going to be drawing us out to deeper waters in the middle of the sea. As Michelle and I paddled, Jesse was wedged between us on the tiny seat. He pulled his hat down over his ears in utter dismay and predicted "We are all going to die." Of course we weren't going to DIE die, but there was a reasonable chance that we were going to drift out to sea, which in turn could have led to all kinds of other problems (capsizing, starving, cannibalism, etc.) So we paddled furiously with collapsible mini-paddles in a vain effort to at least stay in the same place. For a moment, we took solace in the fact that at least one member of our crew was still on shore (Matt), and would surely realize, at some point, that we were missing and call for help. We quickly lost any sliver of consolation that provided when we realized we had never really talked with Matt about some kind of time frame in which he should expect our return, and given the whole signaling debacle the night before, the possibility he would be proactive about some kind of rescue seemed low. And so we paddled. Furiously. To stay put (right about where the yellow star is on the map).
Jesse's cynicism about the utility of paddling was extreme enough that he refused to do it, and was therefore freed up to think about other options. He suggested we try starting the boat one more time, but potentially after waiting a while in case the engine was flooded. We all agreed this would be ideal if it worked, so in the meantime we kept paddling and bailing and discussing the options, if the engine wasn't going to start. I volunteered to swim. In response, Jesse suggested tying himself to the anchor and throwing himself overboard. Michelle kept bailing and paddling and shivering and apologizing for bringing us out on the Sea of Cortez in this god-foresaken boat. If things did go wrong, this would not be the first accident at sea claiming the lives of biologists (see this article on Gary Polis and collaborators who capsized in this very sea about 10 years ago), so we were not completely panicked, but we were intensely reviewing all the options. After about 20 minutes of waiting patiently to start the engine, we gave it a try. It rumbled, and failed. We tried again, and it started. Halleluah!!! We had no idea what was wrong with it, and we could only putter, but putter we did. Straight back to the peninsula, vowing that if we made it to land we would never take this boat out on the Sea of Cortez again.
At this point, you might be asking yourself-- are they ever going to make it onto the islands to catch snakes? We were wondering the same thing. Stay tuned for Day 3 to find out....