For two weeks after leaving Cocos Island we were at sea again. The
daily soundings were taken, the temperatures of the water and samples,
and then there were the nets. We had out the big otter trawl net to go
to the bottom every day until we lost it by getting it tangled in the
propeller over the stern. And the long eight-foot net to go to bottom
we also lost, probably because it hit a submerged mountain peak or a
huge rock.
But there were always other nets, the one metre net, the half metre and
the Blake dredge. A metre is a little over three feet. Once in the
morning and once every afternoon these went over, and there was always
great excitement about it. There were some fine rich hauls.
In about the best haul there were two tubs of deep sea fish from
bottom—black and queer looking, some with long pointed tails without a
tail fin, some eels, black with pointed heads, and a lot of funny
little fish like sharks only with bright green eyes. Many of these come
to the surface with the scales all torn off or soft and peeling.
There were light pink starfish, very brittle, a few sea cucumbers, some
living sponges, crabs, bright red shrimps and two or three very queer
looking fish with faces like demons or bogeys with funny little
electric light things sticking out in front of them on long barbels,
which is what they call the long whisker-like thing.
I brought home for my collection a few specimens of this rare deep sea
life. Starfish, shrimp and cyclothone, which is a small deep sea fish.
Apparently there is a great undersea plateau around Cocos. It is about
six hundred fathoms deep. Just off the edge of this it is thirteen to
sixteen hundred fathoms deep.
For days we saw many ocean tunnie fish jumping near the ship, and we
tried all kinds of baits and different spoons and squids to catch them.
One day Mother finally got four of them by jerking a squid up and down
from off the boom. They weighed from ten to fourteen pounds and it
certainly was very good to have fresh fish for breakfast next morning.
They are a beautiful fish, like a torpedo, or bullet shaped with lovely
dark blue backs and pinkish silvery sides with four stripes below the
middle line and they are very swift swimmers, moving as fast or faster
than the ship, for hours at a time.
One day I was sitting on the rail preparing a fish skeleton, and
suddenly there was a loud “Pwishshsh” right near me. Mack, the first
mate, called out “Whale!” and I jumped up and saw him not fifteen feet
away. A big black body about forty feet long.
Another day we saw a whole school of big blackfish, a kind of small
whale, and they also were right near the boat for an hour. They first
look like huge slow porpoises coming slowly to the surface to breathe.
They are black, with rounded snouts and a big huge, fin, something like
a shark’s, on the back.
During this time at sea, Shorty and I made a cute little dog house for
Betty’s puppy, Dyna. It is white, with a red roof and a little gable
over the door with a sign, “Beware of the Dog.” Shorty Schoedsack is
the photographer who went with my friend Colonel Cooper to Persia and
took the wonderful movie “Grass.” He is called “Shorty” because he is
about six feet six inches tall.
We had rough seas and constant rains almost all the time out here
perhaps because we were still so close to the Cocos Islands. But it has
meant we could not go over the side for a swim or even put out the
little motor skiff for game fishing or trolling.