The Blues Road: The Hour of Pearl

John Steinbeck

“It has always seemed strange to me...The things we admire in men, kindness and generosity, openness, honesty, understanding and feeling, are the concomitants of failure in our system. And those traits we detest, sharpness, greed, acquisitiveness, meanness, egotism and self-interest, are the traits of success. And while men admire the quality of the first they love the produce of the second.”

― John Steinbeck, Cannery Row

Leaving San Francisco was hard. We had been seduced by the charms of the coolest city on the West Coast and could have spent many more days here. Despite it being a large city, you are propelled quickly into countryside and shoreline as Route 1 takes you down in the direction of Monterey and the Big Sur.

Leaving San Francisco across the Bay Bridge

We are soon back on a deserted coast

The landscape changes once again as the countryside becomes more agricultural and Mediterranean. This is an area where the agriculture is intensive and the dark fertile soil needs constant irrigation. We pass fields of artichokes, courgettes, brussel sprouts, strawberries and many more. Its hard to imagine that Marilyn Monroe began beauty-queen career by winning the "Miss Artichoke" contest in the annual "Artichoke Festival" way back when she was still Norma Jean in a nearby town called Castroville.

It’s strange to think of this beautiful Hollywood goddess involved in the promotion and marketing of a vegetable. We pass field upon field of artichokes and I realize that I will view this humble vegetable in a different light from now on.

Artichokes will never be the same!

Still more wonderful beaches but the sand has now turned a golden colour. We stop near a small town called Pescadero where we walk on miles of sandy beach. The beaches and the wetlands behind them are full of birdlife and many of these may be migrating south for the winter. One of the other features of this part of the coast is the Giant Kelp forests out at sea. The kelp plays an important role in protecting wildlife and providing feeding opportunities for mammals such as Sea Otters, Seals and Sea-Lions. The Kelp can grow to many meters in length. The enclosed picture shows us using a length as a skipping rope.

Skipping to the beat of the Kelp!

Santa Cruz is famous for its funfair, which sits on the edge of the beach. The town marks a stark contrast with the rest of the coast. Its busy, bold, brash and fun. Unfortunately, everything is closed down for the winter and the crowds like the birds have migrated away. Jacqui and Liz promised us that they would have gone on the Giant Dipper had it been open. Apparently the ride is so famous and such a classic, that it is listed as a National Historic Landmark. Great lunch at a tiny fish restaurant at the end of the pier called the Dolphin and back on the road.

The Broadwalk Funfair at Santa Cruz

The Dolphin Restaurant at the end of the pier

Route 1 is getting busier all the time and not that quiet narrow road that we joined in Oregon. Liz is desperate to see a Sea Otter. Despite looking all the way down, we had not been successful. We stopped at a State Park in a small town called Moss’s Landing and to our amazement found over 20 joyfully playing and floating in a raft in a tidal pool behind the dunes. This is apparently typical behavior for these cute mammals who apparently spend most of their time preening themselves. Adult Sea Otters have recently fallen victim to shark attacks off this coast leaving many pups stranded. Our otters were adolescents who had been rescued and re-released into the wild.

A raft of young Sea Otters

Just as you imagined them!

We are in Monterey at last and we are staying on Cannery Row. I cannot believe it. I have been a Steinbeck fan all my life and it's impossible to get away from this great man in this part of the world. Steinbeck was originally from nearby Salinas and based some of his novels in this area. He wrote Cannery Row in 1945 (with a sequel called Sweet Thursday in 1954). The book is about Mack and his friends who live a carefree and colorful life in an around the old sardine canning area of Monterey. They want to do something special for their friend Doc. The party snowballs and goes out of control and Doc looses everything. It’s a story about friendship, contentment, hope and resilience and its very funny. The characters are forever etched into literary history. Steinbeck said of his characters “[Cannery Row's] inhabitants are, as the man once said, 'whores, pimps, gamblers, and sons of bitches,' by which he meant everybody. Had the man looked through another peephole he might have said, 'saints and angels and martyrs and holy men,' and he would have meant the same thing.”

To me Cannery Row is a story about contentment in the face of adversary and hardship, it was the complete antithesis of the capitalist world that America had become at that time.

Some of the old cannery row has escaped the "tat" makeover

Past glory

To many Cannery Row is just another tourist trap, full of trinket and sweatshirt shops, but its still great to be here. Despite the makeover some of the wharfs and a few of the building remain to tell us about an industry that was once thriving in this area.

Sardines were plentiful in these waters and people came from all over the world to catch and can them. At its height the sardine fleet in Monterey were catching 250,00 tons a year. Then in 1946, the catch suddenly dropped as a result of over fishing. Yet another example, so often seen on this coast of the poor management of natural resources and the human tragedy that followed it. Doc is based on Steinbeck’s great friend Ed Rickets who ran a laboratory in Cannery Row and foresaw the overfishing of the sardine.