That's My Story

BLOOD ON THE BEACH – published March 2005 – Western Outdoors Magazine Baja Backbeat Column

I came up on the beach a few weeks ago with some clients while out fishing in our pangas. What a great glorious Mexican day. It was the kind of day that makes my job easy and clients think that they caught a lot of fish because of my (perceived) “talent and experience” ! Ha! The nice thing about working in the Sea of Cortez is that the ocean usually takes care of everything and I’m just a grateful bystander. I was guiding the client and his wife and we were returning from a good day on the water…good sun…good company…good fish. All the combinations were there. Lots of smiles… at least, until we got back to the beach and saw all the bodies on the beach.

“Oh my Gawd! What’s that on the beach? What’s all that blood?” shrieked my client’s wife squinting in the bright early afternoon sunshine as we gunned the panga, Mexican style, right through the surf and up onto the sand to a sudden halt.

I tried to tell her those were manta rays (actually mobulae…smaller cousins to the giant mantas) but she immediately hopped out’ve the panga and was walking quickly to where the commercial pangeros (skiff captains) were cutting up and selling their catch to the truck from the market down the beach from where we had beached out boat.

Although I was still in the panga, I could easily see the carcasses of rays, sharks, and rockfish being cut and stacked. The wind was running out’ve my sail as I could already tell from her comments where this was all heading. I looked at my client who cocked an eyebrow and shrugged.

The clients’ wife came back in a rage of tears. “Those men should be shot!” She screamed. “They are butchering those fish! Can’t we stop them? Can’t we call the police or something?” She was almost shaking with anger.

“What they’re doing is perfectly legal,” I tried to explain as calmly as possible to diffuse the situation. This was not the first time I had heard this. I told her I didn’t like seeing animals like manta rays and sharks cut up like that either. Heck, people pay me money to take them scuba diving so they can see these great creatures in the water. However, there wasn’t much I could do about it. At least not here on the beach. I also tried to tell her that these pangeros out here are just guys trying to make a living and feed their families.

“Well, then YOU are partially to blame too!” she screamed. I could feel this one coming. Here we go… zero sixty in one sentence. “People like you with YOUR attitude are the very reason the world’s creatures are being destroyed! You should be out there forming up a group of captains or something or forming an eco group to be saving those animals!”

She had now turned on me…the fishing guy. I looked at her husband who smartly had moved out’ve the line-of-fire and had turned his attention to busying himself gathering up his gear in the boat. However, I knew he could hear.

I tried to tell her that these are just simple captains. Most of them don’t even own their own boats. They scrape to buy gas for the boats. They are at the whim of weather and currents. They hold their trucks together with duct tape and spit (well, I didn’t exactly say “spit!”) They make pennies while fishing. When not fishing, they are working in the chili farms for 2 dollars/day. They live in homes that might have a dirt floor and a blue tarp for a roof with chickens having as much a right-of-way as a visiting neighbor. They were about SURVIVAL, not forming eco groups! (I tried to say this in a calm matter-of-fact way to try to keep a lid on this).

I told her, that I’m no tree-hugger, but I didn’t like seeing all those carcasses on the beach and in the surf either. But, I tried to tell her these guys aren’t part of a big ocean-raping corporation. Their names are “Jose” and “Ramon” and “Victor” and they were just “guys” trying to live day-to-day from whatever the ocean gives them. No malice intended towards the environment. They weren’t “sportfishing” for fun like us (I pointed to the rather full fish box in the panga that had a nice limit of dorado and cabrilla). I told her I couldn’t fault a guy for doing what I would do in the same circumstance…trying to eat!

That did it. Maybe I put too much emphasis on that last part.

At that she stormed off up the beach in a huff. There’s a disturbance in the force, Luke. It’s like when your girlfriend thinks she caught you in something you didn’t do. The silence is deafening. I was left being the bad guy. Her husband looked at me and just said, “I didn’t want to get in the middle of that, but why exactly are they killing all those sharks and mantas?”

I looked at his quiver of gold reels. I looked at his expensive designer shorts and L.L. Bean shirt. I remembered his wife’s diamond ring (the size of a 1 oz. egg sinker) and designer sunglasses that alone must’ve cost more than some captains make in a month.

What I wanted to say is, “With all due respect, have you ever been hungry? I mean really hungry? Have you ever looked at your kids and not had enough milk to go around or dinner was the same beans you had 3 nights in a row? No catsup. No salsa. No cheese. It’s beans and tortillas and if you’re lucky…maybe some rice or a piece of fishy bonito that one of your “generous” clients gave you instead of a tip.

Have you ever been in a situation where you really didn’t know where tomorrow’s meal is coming from? In my worst college days of eating hard boiled eggs and Top Ramen until it was coming out’ve my ears, I didn’t miss a lot of meals. That’s what I wanted to say. Instead, I said, “They’re just trying to make a living.” He was good with that and walked somberly to the waiting shuttle van with his gear. So much for a bright-cheery day. His wife didn’t speak to me again the rest of their vacation.

That’s my story…
Jonathan