Carnival in mazatlán - A Fascination for Fish: Adventures of an Underwater Pioneer - page 87

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CARNIVAL IN MAZATLÁN
T HE SEA OF CORTEZ EXHIBIT was very popular with Sea World's visi-
tors. As with all exhibits that feature live animals, we occasionally had
to replenish the collection, but fortunately not in the numbers of that
first trip. By 1967, the year we needed to make another collecting trip,
Willard Bell's generosity had put a significant dent in his bank account
and he couldn't a¤ord to be as generous a second time. He did volun-
teer to run his boat down to the Cape and transport fish back to Sea
World, but he couldn't a¤ord to pay his crew to stay there for the four
weeks we would be collecting.
A new and much lower-budget plan was hatched. We'd drive to the
Cape with our collecting gear piled onto a pickup truck. At that time,
of course, the only road down the peninsula of Baja California was an
extremely rugged one-lane dirt track. Even if we could make it to the
Cape via the Baja “road,” it was questionable if the truck, our equip-
ment, or we would still be functioning once we arrived. The new plan
was to drive to the Cape via the paved highway on the mainland of
Mexico. We would cross the border into Mexico at Mexicali, then head
south to Guaymas and on down to Mazatlán. At Mazatlán we'd take
the big ferry across the Gulf to La Paz and drive the remaining 120
miles to the Cape.