Previous | Next :: The Sardines of Cannery Row : Monterey : California | July 3, 2014, 9:21 pm

Here are the last of the Cannery Row sardines ............. What seems like tens of thousands of them swim together in endless circles in a simply amazing display in the Monterey Aquarium ......... Its such an amazing display it stayed in my mind from the last time I was here over 10 years back it was the main thing I remembered although the sea otter tank is amazing too ..............

Weirdly the sardines seem happy enough even though they are totally packed in together ........ like er..... well you know ......... like sardines .......... hehehehe .......... I always thought the packed together "like sardines" referred to the cans of sardines ........ But it might well come from life in this tank ............ To be fair left to their own devices they would swim this packed together even in the open ocean ......... they love a bit of close quarters living ........ yeah they like it like this .................. safety in numbers and all that .............. apparently predators are confused by and wary of their giant shoals because as all the fish move as one they appear as one giant creature.

Monterey had been a town that had a mega sardine canning business .......... during the first world war canned fish for soldiers meant fortunes were made .......... same again in the second world war ........... but the total over fishing of all the nearby fishing grounds ........ meant eventually there was no more fish. ...............

So without fish ......... Monterey fell on hard times .......... I am in Monterey writing this now .............. a town basically only saved by tourism ......... A tourism apparently created by Steinbeck novels .............. So I really have no excuse for not reading John Steinbeck's 'The Grapes of Wrath' now that I am really in Steinbeck country ......... Well actually while here in Monterey........ I should be reading the Steinbeck novel about Monterey and the characters in its fish business : 'Cannery Row'.

Cheers Jez XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

PS......... This is shot on the little Sony NEX7 :-))))))))))) XXXXXXXX

www.jezblog.com