Turtle were everywhere--floating gray-green disks just under the
surface. Sea-birds in clouds clamored all day long about the
shore and sand-pits. At long intervals flying-fish skittered over
the water like skipping-stones. Shoals of porpoises came in from
outside, leaping clumsily along the edges of the kelp. Bewildered
land-birds perched on the schooner's rigging, and in the early
morning the whistling of quail could be heard on shore near where
a little fresh-water stream ran down to meet the ocean.

It was Wilbur who caught the first shark on the second morning of
the "Bertha's" advent in Magdalena Bay. A store of bait had been
accumulated, split and halved into chunks for the shark-hooks, and
Wilbur, baiting one of the huge lines that had been brought up on
deck the evening before, flung it overboard, and watched the
glimmer of the white fish-meat turning to a silvery green as it
sank down among the kelp. Almost instantly a long moving shadow,
just darker than the blue-green mass of the water, identified
itself at a little distance.

Enormous flukes proceeded from either side, an erect dorsal fin,
like an enormous cock's crest, rose from the back, while
immediately over the head swam the two pilot-fish, following so
closely the movement of the shark as to give the impression of
actually adhering to his body. Twice and three times the great
man-eater twelve feet from snout to tail-tip, circled slowly about
the bait, the flukes moving fan-like through the water. Once he
came up, touched the bait with his nose, and backed easily away.
He disappeared, returned, and poised himself motionless in the
schooner's shadow, feeling the water with his flukes.