Carnival in mazatlán - A Fascination for Fish: Adventures of an Underwater Pioneer - page 91

was quite di¤erent, and a lot more work for just us three. None of us
relished swimming out on a pitch-black sea at night to bring the Whaler
in to the beach to load our dive gear, and we kept very close track of
whose turn it was. Even though none of us had seen a single shark on
all our previous dives at the Cape, we each had visions of sharks be-
neath us as we swam out through the black water. After our dive, too,
we had to take the boat back out to its mooring and then swim back
in to the beach. While diving at night never bothered us, there was some-
thing unnerving about swimming on top of the water in the dark. Each
time it was my turn to deal with the boat, I felt quite vulnerable.
Our days were spent catching food for the fish we'd collected and
repairing the net covers on the receivers to keep out the vigilant and
ever-hungry pelicans. For hours we'd have to listen to the infernal racket
of the gas-powered scuba compressor as it refilled the tanks we'd used
the night before. The compressor was slow, noisy, and so heavy it could
barely be called portable, but it was invaluable for our work.
At one point during this trip Betty hitched a ride down to the Cape
and back in the private plane of a man coming down on business. She
made a couple of scuba dives with me around Sheppard Rock, so she
had a chance to see what these beautiful fish look like and where they
live.
Collecting was good, and we had a large population of fishes in the
receivers when the Five Bells came down from San Diego to pick up
the fish and take them back to Sea World. Soon thereafter we loaded
the pickup truck and headed north to La Paz, the ferry, and the long
road home to California. Getting back into highway tra‹c was
definitely a culture shock after the quiet, rugged beauty of the Cape
and its rich surrounding desert.
MISADVENTURES IN LOS CABOS
We needed to make another trip the following year, 1968, to collect a
few more of certain species. We had agreed among ourselves to move
our operation to some location other than Cabo San Lucas to avoid
the possibility of depleting the fish population, and had discussed the
suitability of alternate sites. A good location needed to have road ac-