Jonathan Schofield on sea lions, sea food and Steinbeck
Guiding and barriers on the head
Karen was our 'official' guide for the attractive Californian town of Monterey. She was 82 and we knew this because she’d told us four times in the first two minutes. She’d also told us she had three dead husbands, the final one breathing his last twenty years ago, and none of them had “smoked, drunk or taken drugs, but all had died natural deaths.”
Karen’s tragic husband information didn’t appear particularly relevant to Monterey’s past, present and future, but then again, not much did, and our stroll with Karen was more a trip through Karen’s eventful life. She seemed to think a guided tour was about giving information, any information, in any order, so on a tour of Monterey in California we were instructed on the ins and outs of Vietnamese food and the joys of living in Mexico. It was all very pleasant in a dreamy, unreal way and it was hard not to like our ancient, meandering guide.
There was another unusual aspect to Karen’s walking tour, she didn’t seem terribly good on her feet: think Joe Biden before his disastrous debate with the Orange One. This had consequences for my head. As we approached a car park entrance with high kerbs I asked if she wanted to take my arm to help her down. She said no thank you, but rather could I give her a bit of space. I went wide.
What I hadn’t noticed was a vehicle had just left the car park. As I stepped back the arm of the car park barrier came bouncing down on my head. Then it bounced up, so for a startled moment I looked straight up into the air and couldn’t work out what had happened. There was only blue sky above, then I turned to my left and understood.
There were witnesses, some looked shocked, even worried, but it was so absurd, so unlikely I burst out laughing. The barrier hadn’t hurt, it had foam attached on the underside. I deadpanned with something like: “That’s no way to welcome a tourist”. The nearby Americans now laughed. One woman sagely advised I should sue the car park owners.
Karen hadn’t noticed. She walked on talking about olive oil and China on this tour of Monterey in California.
Pelicans and airplanes, sea lions and sea otters
Monterey is a pretty place and one with more sea lions and sea otters than people. The latter are the definition of cute, floating on their backs in groups known as ‘rafts’, with their cubs basking on their bellies. The sea lions are less cute but provide real entertainment on the shoreline as they bash each other about and yell like people jostling to get on a matchday tram or the rush-hour tube.
Sea lions are loud. The first night in California I spent in the Monterey Plaza Hotel in a room overlooking the ocean. I thought the French windows should stay open to admit the lullaby of the waves lapping against the rocks. An hour later I slammed the windows closed, driven almost insane by the heavy metal honking and barking of the sea lions. They kept the racket up all night. All bloody night and mainly the males, of course. Some Californian counselling is required to sort out this ‘expressive aggression’ as psychiatrists say.
Three am honking aside, those sea lions, sea otters and, let’s not forget, the seals, are good to see. To have such large wild creatures right in the heart of a seaside town is fascinating, charming and, to use the most over-used slice of Americana (oh please stop) on my trip, “awesome”.
On a boat ride at Moss Landing nature reserve not far from Monterey there were more natural wonders. The way the pelicans, with their seven-feet wingspan, glided in formation inches above the water was ‘awesome’ part two. This is the official explanation of the flight pattern from the Loyola University of New Orleans.
‘As the bird glides over the water the air is “funnelled” between the lower surfaces of the wings and the upper surface of the water. The air is thereby compressed and functions like a cushion of dense air that supports the bird aloft, in addition to the normal aerodynamic forces at work. As the bird nears the water surface, the ground effect becomes stronger. It is also more efficient over calm (flat) water.’
This ‘compression gliding’ was something I’d experienced flying from Manchester to Heathrow on the first leg of the journey. As the plane wheels were about to touch down the pilot suddenly gunned the engines and we soared into the air, circling Heathrow before landing on the second attempt.
“What happened?” I asked a flight attendant. “There was an air pocket trapped under the front of the plane and the pilot couldn’t get the nose down,” she said. She didn’t then add: “We were giving you an idea of how pelicans use compression gliding.”
Fish to eat, fish to view and Ringo Starr
The sea is generous with its seafood in the Monterey area. At the Monterey Plaza Hotel restaurant the seafood platter proved the point. It was marvellous, oysters, prawns, mussels and crayfish tails, all as fresh as they come and as vivid in colour as a Gauguin painting. The meal was taken on a terrace over the sea accompanied by easy listening pop. I vaguely remember hearing snatches of a Billy Joel track in the brief seconds the sea lions paused for breath.
Monterey has a popular and beautifully delivered aquarium. The tanks are mesmerising with fish of all different shapes and sizes milling about. The jelly fish stole the show, despite the bigger animals, with their languid, hypnotising and out-of-this-world motion and appearance. If you're in Monterey you should go.
It’s curious to see Ringo Starr get his moment in the aquarium with a quote from that novelty and awful Beatles’ song, Octopus Garden. The line ‘I’d like to be under the sea in an octopus’s garden in the shade’ is slung across a wall. There’s a Spanish translation and rightly so, given the huge Latin American population in California. It reads: ‘Quisiera estar bajo el mar en el Jardin de un pulpo, a la sombra.’
All together now.
Monterey, cold water and the Doc
The area of Monterey held populations of the Rumsen-Ohlone tribe generally minding their own business until 1602 when a Spaniard, Sebastian Vizcaino, popped by and said, ‘hey, we’re changing the name to Puerto de Monterrey as I want to suck up to the Conde de Monterrey.’ Thus, a part of California was named after a place in Galicia, north western Spain.
Permanent Spanish settlement followed much later in 1769/70 and Monterey became part of Mexico, which was a Spanish colony. In 1822 Mexico gained independence and Monterey became California’s major port of entry. Following a war and the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo the USA achieved one of the best land grabs in history not only gaining what is now the state of California but also Utah, Nevada, parts of Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, and Wyoming; equivalent to eight times the size of the UK and Northern Ireland.
Fishing had always played a big part in the area especially given the fertility of the astonishing underwater Monterey Canyon which extends for 95 miles under the Pacific. At its western end its depth is 11,800 ft. Sardines were the name of the game and Monterey became famous for its canneries until the 1950s when overfishing led to terminal decline.
With sardines comes novelist John Steinbeck. He’s an unavoidable presence in Monterey with sculptures and plaques everywhere. His book Cannery Row fictionalises the lives of people working in and around the sardine processing factories in the Great Depression. The street it focusses on was then called Ocean View Boulevard but was renamed Cannery Row in honour of the novel.
There are references to Steinbeck’s book everywhere in Monterey; we’re back to the Beatles again, it’s the same in Liverpool with the ‘Fab Four’. There’s a very large sculptural group featuring the main characters close to the Aquarium. Back where the old rail line crosses the road there's a life-size bust of Ed Ricketts, a marine biologist and the inspiration for Doc in the novel. He died when his car was hit by the Del Monte Express at the rail crossing. The man from Del Monte he say, “Yes…die.” That’s for the older readers who remember the Del Monte advert. Rickett’s house is open on Cannery Row occasionally and there's a good piece about the Doc here.
The first line of Steinbeck’s novel is memorable: ‘Cannery Row in Monterey in California is a poem, a stink, a grating noise, a quality of light, a tone, a habit, a nostalgia, a dream.’ I’m assuming the grating noise is the irascible sea lions having their 24/7, 365 days a year scrap over whose sitting on which rock and whose turn it is with the lady sea lions.
Back to our tour guide.
As we approached Rickett’s bust Karen said: “I always like to put a flower in his hands. It’s a tradition.” She then plucked the last remaining flower from the last remaining flowering plant in a front garden close to the bust. “That’s not your garden, is it Karen?” I said. “No, it’s not,” she smiled and continued with, “Anyway, when I was in Vietnam the food was so vivid you know and the people so friendly. Mexico is a wonderful country. Did I tell you about my third husband he was the love of my life. He died twenty years ago. Oh look, a thing, what’s it called?”
It was a bicycle.
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