"The Old Man And The Sea" of Cortez

 

What do Ernest Hemingway and I have in common?  We are both wearing the exact same style of fishing shorts in these two pictures.  Check out the shorts. That's Hemingway on a fishing boat some place in the Caribbean, and that's  me with the captain of a small fishing boat in the Sea of Cortez, just out of Cabo San Lucas. Or, could it have been in the Arctic Ocean, looking at the way the captain is dressed for cold weather? 

In June we went to Cabo San Lucas for a wedding.  Some of the groom's family made arrangements to go fishing and invited me.  I'd long thought about going "deep sea sport fishing" but never did.  This was a chance.  That, plus the romantic idea of joining the likes of writer and "tough guy" Ernest Hemingway. 

 


Cabo San Lucas is certainly beautiful and warm, with blue sky and water and lots of sport fishing.  Cabo San Lucas is located on the southern tip of Mexico's Baja California Peninsula, on the same latitude as Hawaii.  It's approximately 1,000 miles south of San Diego.  It is now definitely a tourist destination. 


 


 
Although the Sea of Cortez is named after Spaniard Captain  Hernan Cortez, his navigator Fancisco de Ulloa is credited with discovering Cabo San Lucas in 1537.  It has a history of pirates raiding Spanish ships taking treasures back to Spain.  A fort was established there and the area was opened up to further exploration.  In 1730 a Jesuit mission was built.  The biggest obstacle to development was lack of a steady water supply.

That's one of the things I wondered about when I got there-- Where does the fresh water come from?  I have since learned that the

Laguna Mountains to the north produce about 30 inches of rain each year from the clouds.  The rain feeds into the underground Rio San Jose and accumulates underground and in nearby estuaries.  The stored water is then treated for consumption.  At any rate, the fresh water problem has been solved in Cabo San Lucas.

Staring at the surf we noticed flying manta rays. There were quite a few of them close to shore.  For game, people fish for all types of marlin, sailfish, and sometimes sword fish.  There are also dorado (mahi mahi), yellowfin tuna and several types of shark.  We were going to fish for the tuna.

 

We were picked up on the beach by a couple of small boats and then we bought some live bait from another small boat anchored out.  You could see many local residents relied upon tourists fishing, just as many worked in the tourist hotels.

We started fishing for the yellowfin tuna, and we caught some before too long.  Apprently, that's not always the case.   While the water had a little bit of chop to it, particularly where the Sea of Cortez collided with the Pacific Ocean, it wasn't so bad that I got sick-- only pretty queasy. 

After catching a few tuna, the chop was getting to us gringos and we decided to turn back to town.  But, on the way the captain spotted a marlin and asked if "we" wanted to catch it.  We said okay.  This is the way it actually worked-- the captain got his engine running again (it had broken down and we had bobbed up and down in the waves for a while as he tried to fix it, breathing the gasoline fumes, which didn't help a whole lot), quickly got in front of the swimming marlin, got a stiff pole, and then baited a hook and threw it over in front of the marlin (while I steered the boat for him, thankful for having something to hold on to).  Sure enough, the marlin grabbed the bait and was hooked-- all thanks to el capitan.



Sam, the other adult in our small fishing party, had caught and reeled in marlins on other trips to Cabo, so he asked if I wanted to reel in this one.  Wanting to save face and act like Ernest Hemingway, I agreed.  That's when I started identifying with "The Old Man and the Sea."  It didn't take days to reel in the marlin, but it still seemed like a long time to this queasy, thristy (my mouth no longer had any spit in it) ol' man.  I never felt like giving up-- but maybe secretly hoped the marlin would break loose and free me. 

Hemingway's short story "The Old Man and the Sea" was written by Hemingway in Cuba in 1951 and published in 1952.  Apparently, it was his last major work of fiction produced and published in his lifetime.  Born in 1899, Hemingway commited suicide in Ketchum, Idaho in 1961, at the age of 61.  Anyway, "The Old Man and the Sea"  is one of Hemingway's most famous works.  It was made into a Hollywood movie starring Spencer Tracy in 1958, and into a television movie starring Anthony Quinn in 1990. 

"The Old Man and the Sea" centers upon Santiago, a Cuban fisherman who has had a string of bad luck.  One day he goes out and finally catches a fish, hooking a monster marlin.  Santiago respects the marlin and battles it for a couple of days in a test of wills, holding on while being pulled by the marlin out to sea.   Santiago finally wins and the too-big-to-get-into-the-boat marlin is tied to the side of the small fishing skiff as Santiago returns to shore.  Of course, sharks attack and eat the marlin, so Santiago returns to port with only the large skeleton tied to his small boat.  But, at least all the townspeople see that he his luck had returned and he had caught a very large fish.  He's not a "has-been" yet. 

In the Hollywood movie, Spencer Tracy at times almost looks possessed.  Note that in the pictures, Spencer Tracy and I are wearing almost the exact same shirt.  The similarities don't end there, however.  While there is no picture of me, battling the marlin for probably less than 20 minutes, with the exact same possessed expression of a desparate man who had been fighting a fish for days, I'm sure it was there on my face to be seen.  (Instead of a fishing line, imagine pulling on a five-mile long drinking straw with the other end in a tall, cool Diet Coke on ice.  That's what I was imagining). 

Would I do it again?  Well, probably not-- although later in the month a couple of friends and I went out on the Pacific Ocean off the Washington coast, fishing for salmon, which will be the subject of another post. 

Land Ho!

The "Potholes" Lakes

This is a picture of Blythe Lake in Eastern Washington as the sun is coming up.

I had a free day in the middle of the week, so I decided to go fishing in the “Potholes” in Eastern Washington. The eastern part of the state is high desert—very stark, uncluttered and peaceful. In the summer it’s warm and sunny.  At midnight I put the canoe on top of the car and drove 200 miles to Blythe Lake, arriving shortly before sunrise.

When I first got there it was still dark and the bull frogs all around the lake were croaking. It sounded like they were trying to get their cellos in tune-- very deep tones. But then a few started something that reminded me of the Australian Didgeridoo. And when I walked around the car I would hear splashing when the frogs and turtles jumped into the water. Different sounds than in the city.

About 15,000 years ago, towards the end of the last ice age, the Cordilleran Ice Sheet covered the northern parts of Washington, Idaho and Western Montana. The front edge of the ice sheet was about 2,000 feet high. That’s about three times the height of the Seattle Space Needle.

In what’s now Montana, there was a lot of water trapped behind ice dams, which were part of the ice sheet. That water is now referred to as Glacial Lake Missoula and may have been about half the size of Lake Michigan. Every 40 years or so during a 2000-year period, the ice dams would burst and all that water would rush across Eastern Washington at about 80 miles per hour. The water would scour the earth, pushing sediment and rocks out of the way and down into Oregon and beyond. The erosion was fierce. Enormous canyons and channels were formed in the volcanic rock almost instantly.

Dry Falls is an example of the vast erosion caused by the Missoula Floods (sometimes called the Spokane Floods). When water was flowing over Dry Falls, it was about twice as much as Niagara Falls. You can get all this information on the web.

Blythe Lake is near Moses Lake. The Moses Lake area has many lakes, commonly known as "potholes," which were initially carved out by  the floodwaters from Glacial Lake Missoula. Moses Lake feeds the Potholes Reservoir, which is part of the Columbia Basin Irrigation Project, a dam and irrigation project which raised the water table high enough to allow the potholes to become lakes. Blythe Lake is just south of the reservoir.  It's one of the little dots at the top left of this photo:

I don’t know if Blythe Lake is “officially” one of the potholes, but most people refer to all the lakes in the area as “The Potholes.” So, I went fishing in “The Potholes” (although there is an actual lake with that name). You know what I mean.

Anyway, I got there before sunrise and put the canoe in and paddled around the lake. I tried dragging a spinner behind as I paddled; I anchored and tried worms, both deep and shallow, and Power Bait, both deep and shallow. Never a bite or sight of a trout. This little guy got hooked on a worm, but I threw him back (along with the pliers shown in the picture).

While I didn’t catch any trout, it was six hours on the water well spent. The surroundings were beautiful. You could hear the air going through the feathers of the birds as they flew by. You could hear your own breathing. I was the only person at the lake—all day. That’s my car shown in the photo. It was great. After six hours on the lake, I drove back home.

The canoe worked well. The wind was really up coming home, and it was blowing sideways on the canoe. But, the canoe held up. That’s a picture of the back rest I made for it—you can lean against it or sit on top. I also learned that I can stretch out and fall asleep on the bottom of the canoe. That could work in a pinch.

"Walter the Penniless" and "Peter the Hermit"

Walter the Penniless was lieutenant to Peter the Hermit and co-led the People's Crusade at the beginning of the First Crusade (1095-1099).

The Crusades were undertaken by European Christians between the 11th and 14th centuries to recover the Holy Land, particularly Jerusalem, from Islam. The movement began in France when Pope Urban II exhorted Christendom to war, promising that the journey would count as penance.

The First Crusade (1095-1099) began with the march of several undisciplined hordes of French and German peasants (approximately 12,000 people, of whom only eight were knights), led by Walter the Penniless and Peter the Hermit.

Leaving well before the main army of knights and their followers, Walter led his band, traveling separately from Peter. They started out by massacring the Jews in the Rhineland (i.e., West Germany) and incensed the Bulgarians and Hungarians, who attacked and dispersed them. They reached Constantinople in shreds. Walter and Peter joined forces at Constantinople and crossed over the Asia Minor, and were promptly defeated by the Turks.

Peter the Hermit had returned to Constantinople, either for reinforcements or to protect himself. But Walter was killed, allegedly pierced by seven arrows. Peter returned to France and joined an Augustinian monastery.

There were nine crusades, plus the Children’ Crusade of 1212. Thousands of French children set out for the Holy land but were instead sold into slavery by unscrupulous skippers. Another group of German children made their way by land but perished of hunger and disease.

Sources: Will Durant, The Age of Faith; Wikipedia; Columbia Viking Desk Encyclopedia; Webster’s Collegiate Encyclopedia.

Trumpet Study Methods

It seems that trumpet players are always concerned about playing lots of notes quickly and correctly (i.e., "technique") and playing high notes (i.e. “screaming”). Where does that come from? Perhaps it is because all the great trumpet players do both. Where to begin? All amateur and aspiring trumpet students start out with Arban’s or Saint-Jacome's method books.

Joseph Jean Baptiste Laurent Arban (1825 – 1889) was probably the first famous trumpet (cornet) soloist. Born in France, he entered the Paris Conservatory at an early age, taking up the study of valved cornet. He was in the French Navy and became a professor at the Military School in 1857. Arban was then elected professor of cornet at the Conservatory in 1869. He was also a cornet soloist throughout Europe and authored Method for the Cornet (1870), which was endorsed and adopted for instruction at the Conservatory. It is still in print. This method of studying the cornet, which is often referred to as the "Trumpeter's Bible," is still studied by modern brass players. It contains hundreds of exercises. The method begins with fairly basic exercises and progresses to very advanced compositions. It focuses on trumpet technique. I started with an Arban’s in the 1960s. It seems all the other trumpet students also studied out of Arban’s.

Louis A. Staint-Jacome (1830 – 1898) was born in Paris and died in London. Louis began his musical training at the age of seven on the piano and violin, taking lessons from his stepfather, a bandmaster. He later studied the cornet at the Paris Conservatory from which he graduated in 1850, winning first prize on the instrument. He must have personally known, or surely at least been familiar with Joseph Arban. In 1870 he became musical arranger for a publishing company and during his tenure with that company he wrote his famous Grand Method for cornet.

It is considered by many players and educators as second to none, except perhaps for the Arban’s. Many teachers believe that the Arban’s method and the St. Jacome method compliment each other, and that the two of them together comprise a complete education on the trumpet.

The French and European trumpet methods of study surely made their way to the United States and influenced American trumpet players.

John Philip Sousa (1854 – 1932) was an American composer and conductor known particularly for American military and patriotic marches. He is known as "The March King." Sousa was born in Washington, D.C., and started his music education by playing the violin. When Sousa reached the age of 13, his father, a trombonist in the Marine Band, enlisted his son in the United States Marine Corps as an apprentice to keep him from joining a circus band. Sousa served his apprenticeship for seven years until 1875. In 1880 he returned to the U.S. Marine Band and remained as its conductor until 1892. Sousa led "The President's Own" band under five presidents.
Sousa organized his own band the year he left the Marine Band, but also served during World War I, leading the Navy Band at the Great Lakes Naval Station. After returning to his own band at the end of the war, he continued to wear his naval uniform for most of his concerts and other public appearances. The Sousa Band toured from 1892–1931, performing at 15,623 concerts. It was a very popular band.

Herbert L. Clarke (1867 – 1945) was an American cornetist, composer, conductor, teacher and one of the most influential musicians at the turn of the 20th Century. In 1893, he joined Sousa and his band in the solo cornet section. After he turned 50, he began to concentrate on conducting and teaching. He opened his own school of cornet playing in Chicago. Clarke died in 1945 and was buried in Washington DC near the grave of his lifelong friend, John Philip Sousa.

Claude Gordon (1916 – 1996) was known as the "King of Brass." He was a trumpet soloist, band director, educator, lecturer, and author. His father was a clarinet soloist as well as an orchestral director. Gordon became Herbert L. Clarke's protégé from 1936 until Clarke died in 1945. During the era of live radio and television, Claude distinguished himself as one of the most successful studio trumpet players and gained a reputation as "the trumpet player who never misses." Claude died from cancer.

There have been a lot of “modern” trumpet players who were excellent soloists, such as Louis Armstrong (1901 – 1971), one of the first well known improvisational soloists; Dizzy Gillespie (1917 – 1993) “be bop” soloist with excellent high note range (shown with upturned trumpet bell); Miles Davis (1926 – 1991), perhaps the greatest trumpet jazz soloist (shown with sun glasses); and Maynard Ferguson (1928 – 2006), big band leader and soloist known for his high notes (shown).

There are a lot more—both classical and jazz trumpet players. Notable jazz trumpet players include Chet Baker, Clifford Brown, Donald Byrd, Jon Faddis, Roy Hargrove, Tom Harrell, Freddie Hubbard, Wynton Marsalis, Blue Mitchell, Lee Morgan and more and more.

To me, Clifford Brown seems to have been one of the most “studied” of some of these trumpet players, although I am only going on the sound of his solos. Clifford Brown (1930 – 1956), died at age 25, leaving behind only four years' worth of recordings. Still, he had a considerable influence on some of those other jazz trumpet players. He won the 1954 Down Beat critics' poll for the 'New Star of the Year' and was inducted into the Down Beat 'Jazz Hall of Fame' in 1972. He formed his own group with Max Roach. The Clifford Brown & Max Roach Quintet was a high water mark of the hard bop style.

The clean-living Brown has been cited as perhaps breaking the influence of heroin on the jazz world, a model established by Charlie Parker. Clifford stayed away from drugs and was not fond of alcohol. Sadly, in 1956, Brown was a passenger in a car and was killed with two others when the driver lost control of the car and it went off the road.

But Jon Faddis (born 1953) has got to be one of the top, if not the top American jazz trumpet player, particularly in the combined areas of technique and high note screaming. You’ve got to hear his music. At least, that’s my opinion. Faddis is a trumpet player, conductor, composer, and educator. The internet states that Faddis currently teaches at The Conservatory of Music at Purchase College-SUNY, in Westchester, New York and he is a guest lecturer at Columbia College Chicago where he serves as the Artistic Director for the Chicago Jazz Ensemble. I’d say he’s pretty “studied.” I’d even bet he studied trumpet techniques out of Arban’s and Saint-Jacome’s at one point.

Hood Canal "Deadliest Catch"

"Deadliest Catch" might be the best show on television. Those guys are amazing. So, last May when I was invited to go shrimping on Hood Canal, it conjured up all sorts of thoughts-- mostly that it would be as close as I'll ever get to being like those crabbers in Alaska (which isn't very close . . . . I know).

Hood Canal and the rest of Puget Sound were created about 13,000 years ago, during the Late Pleistocene by a great ice sheet. The Marmes Man was probably walking around the ice sheet about that time. (Watch for a future post on the Marmes Man and Dry Falls).


Hood Canal was named by the Captain George Vancouver in 1792, when he was making a detailed survey of the Coast of British Columbia. His ships were named the Discovery and Chatham. The United States Board on Geographic Names decided on "Hood Canal" as the official name in 1932.













http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hood_Canal

We were going to catch the "spotted" or "spot" shrimp or, officially, pandalus platyceros. The spotted shrimp (or prawn) is found from Alaska to Southern California, as well as in the Sea of Japan and Korea Straight. Spot shrimp are the largest species of shrimp in Puget Sound and can reach more than nine inches in length, excluding the antennae. They are reddish-brown and deep-pink in color and are recognized by the white spots on their body. They are most commonly found 300 feet deep and below on sandy and rocky floors.
















Interestingly, spot prawns are "protandric hermaphroditic" meaning that each individual initially matures as a male and then passes through a transition stage to become a female. Spot prawns usually live for about 4 years, starting their lives as males and maturing at one year of age. They function as mature males for 2 years and then transform into females in their final year of life. Females might mate only once. http://www.bcseafoodonline.com/files/spot_prawn.html

The season is only open a couple of days each year. Due to extremely high catch rates in 2010, the Hood Canal quota was attained in four days, so no additional days of fishing were allowed in 2010. There are a lot of technical and scientific papers about spot shrimp on the internet, particularly because they are harvested commercially, too. There are also some websites for sport shrimpers, which I suppose is what we were called that afternoon. Still, we had to have a shellfish license from Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, and our limit was 80 shrimp per person.

The shrimp pots had a yellow buoy marked with a name and contact information and 250-350 feet of rope. Inside the pot is a mesh bait container. The bait can be made of different things, as shrimp are omnivores and will feed on most fishy things-- fish guts and meat sprayed with fish oil for additional scent, scented pellets, or the favored canned cat food.

For many years the cat food “Puss’n Boots” was a popular and effective choice because it was soaked in fish oil. "If it isn't 'Puss n'Boots' cat food you're not fishing. I usually use cat food, with addition ingredients with fish scraps as hanging bait. You need the odor to draw the shrimp in and the hanging bait to keep them in."-- James Schufreider. http://www.gamefishin.com/wa/features/shirmp.htm

The company has gone out of business. It was made by Coast Fishing Co. of South California, which was bought out by Quaker Oats and later sold to Del Monte. It was later discontinued due to lack of sales. I don't know what "Puss'n Boots" smelled like, as we always fed our dog "Friskies."














We put the shrimp pots over the side of the boat and let them soak-- just like they do in "Deadliest Catch." They were down about 300 feet. Gloves are good for hauling the pots, but we had a winch aboard.

That was it-- shrimping on Hood Canal in the spirit of all the great fishermen.

(Captain Phil Harris 1956-2010)