"Doc" Ricketts, John Steinbeck, Monterey and the Sea of Cortez

"The tide teaches us to live with mystery and complexity. It lives in the body of a mud shrimp, signaling when to swim and when to burrow. It lives in sandpipers, crabs, and whelks. It lives in the spirit of bores, in the prayers of monks. The tide is vibration, music, time."  —Jonathan White, Tides: The Science and Spirit of the Ocean

Waiting for Doc to answer the door, I knock again, but the timing is off (about 80 years.)  He's not here, but I more clearly imagine Ed Ricketts and John Steinbeck just inside.

Teaching biology has so many wonderful parts like when students are able to connect the dots, especially when two seemingly different worlds collide. The worlds of literature and biology.

My favorite biologist, Ed Ricketts, and my favorite novelist, John Steinbeck, spent some of the richest moments of their lives, here just inside this door at 800 Cannery Row in Monterey California. Here is where they planned their expedition to the Sea of Cortez. 

Image credit: Jeffrey M. Banister, Journal of the Southwest, Vol. 62, Number 2, Summer 2020

Click HERE for an 80 year retrospective on the Log of the Sea of Cortez

The Log of the Sea of Cortez 

To do:  vet the video below