Searching for Steinbeck's Sea of Cortez: A Makeshift Expedition Along Baja's Desert Coast

Andromeda Romano-Lax​ (2002)

THE A5 BOOK REVIEW

Inspired by John Steinbeck, a writer named Andromeda Romano-Lax set out from their home in Alaska with her husband and two small children on a trip to Mexico to explore the beautiful Sea of Cortez.  Their home was the Zuiva, a 24 foot sailboat, and their goal was to trace Steinbeck’s route to see if they could experience what he did.  They got more than a taste of adventure, braving some violent storms, and learning to live in compressed quarters with a depressed and slightly deranged captain.  Part travelogue, part amateur scientific expedition, Searching for Steinbeck's Sea of Cortez is a good all around story, especially interesting for someone thinking of getting away from it all to travel with young children.  
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THE ORIGINAL BOOK BY JOHN STEINBECK

The Log from the Sea of Cortez

The Log from the Sea of Cortez is a travelogue written by John Steinbeck describing his 1940 expedition to collect marine specimens and to study the biology of the Gulf of California in Mexico.  Steinbeck fans like the book for the insights provided into the author himself and his relationship with his friend, the marine biologist Ed Rickets.  Click here to see our review of The Log from the Sea of Cortez.

GREAT QUOTES:

“If looking for life's answers in the plankton-rich broth of a desert tidepool seems peculiar now, it was even stranger then.  Macho travel writers were expected to slay lions and fight bulls in those days.  Other earnest  young men were beginning to contemplate the battlefields of Europe.  It was the dawn of a dark era, and Steinbeck and Ricketts met the coming storm by mucking about in briny puddles.  They spent their days scooping up warty sea cucumbers and sedating writhing brittlestars.  They laughed a lot  They discussed Faust, the poet Lio Po, and Hitler.  And they drank.  You had to wonder what they were up to.  LIke the Mexican boy on the beach, we want to know what Steinbeck and Ricketts were really looking for in a tidepool.  We want to know if they found it, and if we might find it too..”
- Andromeda Romano-Lax, Searching for Steinbeck's Sea of Cortez

INTERESTING LINKS:

MAP OF SEA OF CORTEZ