The boat that carried celebrated author John Steinbeck, marine biologist Ed Ricketts and several crew members to the Sea of Cortez in 1940 was moored off a highway leading from Seattle to Anacortes, Washington, when Kevin Bailey finally laid eyes on it.
Bailey, a Salinas High School graduate who became a marine biologist, was gathering research and inspiration for his book, “The Western Flyer: Steinbeck’s Boat, the Sea of Cortez, and the Saga of Pacific Fisheries.” But his first sighting of the once-proud purse seiner wasn’t what he envisioned.
“It was a pretty discouraging moment, actually,” said Bailey, a Seattle resident who will talk about his book at 6 p.m. Thursday at the National Steinbeck Center. “It was just all beat up. It was underneath a few blue tarps. It was covered with rust. It was pretty decrepit-looking.”