By Alastair Bland

FAR, FAR away from the gleaming lights of San Francisco, there is a remote desert region where few people dwell. In fact, there are no women here and just a very few men. They are lonesome fellows. They live in ramshackle huts on the beach and fish with their compadres every morning for the better part of the year. Many of them have wives, but these women live in the nearest sizable town and wait faithfully for their men to come home for the holidays.

Circumstances in the course of the past two years found me many times walking along desolate lengths of coastline, and in my travels I met many of these wise men of the sea. They welcomed me into their rustic homes, gave me coffee, and told me all about such magical seafood as conch snails, oysters, scallops, and sea urchin roe.

It was in April 2005, somewhere between La Paz and Loreto, Mexico, that I first learned of the reputation of the sea cucumber, a foot-long echinoderm that crawls about the sea floor and claims kinship to sand dollars and sea stars. I had been trudging along for miles that afternoon, slogging through waist-deep water and climbing over treacherous rock piles, when I finally arrived at a long beach of soft sand. Two hundred yards ahead I saw a camp of fishermen on the shore. Several small skiffs lay on the beach, and against the bright, white sand I saw the movement of a person amid a jumbled pile of gear. A half-dozen more men lounged in the shade of a blue tarpaulin they had set up with some rope and old pieces of lumber.

Four huge cauldrons out on the beach steamed over fires of driftwood. I waved hello as I approached, and I glanced into one of the pots. It was filled with shriveled black sea cucumbers.

"Good day," I said in Spanish. "How are you?"

The fellows answered that all was in fine order, and they asked me to come in and rest with them in their shady nook. They were all reading magazines, and they scooted about to make room for me. I took off my pack, set down my water jugs, and joined them. I asked if they were commercial divers.

"Yes," one of them replied. "We have been diving here for two days and will take our catch to town tonight. And then we come back tomorrow. We catch fish too. Anything that sells."

"What are the cucumbers for?" I asked.

"They are a medicine of love!" one exclaimed in a sage tone, and he clenched his fist and struck at the air in a gesture of great power. I should have known. I'd heard this sort of talk before in other Sea of Cortez fish camps.

Another of the divers said, "Look!" He held up the magazine he was reading. It was a hardcore porno, old and tattered at the edges, and I saw now that each of the men had a porno in his lap.

"This lady has eaten sea cucumbers!" the diver continued. "She is very happy." And the naked blond woman did look as if she were writhing in ecstasy.

Another fellow nodded slowly and mused, "Women, they love the sea cucumber."

"But there are no women out here," I remarked.

With this reminder the men grew quiet, sighed, and looked distantly to sea.

I decided to tell them about my hometown.

"I come from San Francisco," I said, "a fantastic city of lights and magic!"

They squinted and nodded in vague recognition of the name, and one asked, "Lots of ladies there?"

"Almost half a million," I boasted.

An eruption of bewildered giggling ensued as these men of the sea tried to fathom the idea of a half-million pretty women walking down the crowded sidewalks.

One of the fishermen asked me if San Francisco women liked to eat sea cucumbers. He and his mates giggled some more.

"Mmmn ... not particularly," I said. "I think they prefer sea urchin roe. It's quite popular in San Francisco's sushi restaurants, but it costs a lot, and mostly yuppies eat it. A yuppie," I continued, "is a spendy, trendy young cosmopolitan who eats out every night and goes dancing afterward. Yuppies thrive in San Francisco."

One thoughtful diver pointed at an 18-inch stack of tattered porno. He asked if I would like to read one. I waved away his offer, and this prompted him to ask if I was religious. Before I could reply he pointed at a chubby man out in the sun stirring one of the pots of sea cucumbers.

"He is a Seventh Day Adventist," he said. "He will not read with us."

The chubby man nodded sheepishly at me and frowned, while the men in the shade laughed. "But we are Catholics!" the pointer explained.

Through further conversation I learned that the sea-cucumber season lasts for three months. In this time a single cooperative of 10 or 12 licensed commercial fishermen may harvest as many as 150,000 cucumbers, which are eventually salted, dried, and shipped to Korea and San Diego. The men showed me their laminated 2005 permit from the government. Their own quota was 141,732.

"We must work every day from March through May," one man said with a sigh. "Some years we do not reach the quota. There are fewer cucumbers than before."

The men dive at night, when the phallus-shaped creatures emerge from the rocks to graze on biogenic sludge. The divers work at 20 to 30 meters of depth in thick wet suits, and each man breathes through a hose connected to an air compressor in the boat. Divers, they told me, occasionally perish at the bottom of the sea when the compressor gives out. I asked if any of the men knew someone who had died in this way, and they said, "No – we are Catholics, and we dive with God." They pointed at the Adventist slaving away in the sun and said, "Even he does!"

I wasn't sure about the whole aphrodisiac business. It smelled of machismo and hot air. I'd been lectured in similar fashion in other beachside camps on sea urchins and raw clams. Regardless, I decided I would soon try some sea cucumbers, and I asked how one goes about preparing them for optimum results.

One man answered in a voice of authority, "In tacos."

"Any sauce you recommend?"

"Hot sauce." He nodded affirmatively.

So two nights later I went snorkeling over a beautiful reef before dinner and grabbed several sea cucumbers. Back on the beach I chopped up the slimy blobs. I discarded the mushy bits and fried up the firm meaty parts in olive oil heated over a fire. Wrapped in corn tortillas, the meat tasted very nice – tender and a bit like scallops.

After eating, I slipped into my sleeping bag and wondered what happens to a person who has overdosed on a powerful aphrodisiac. The day had been long, however, and I yawned. The sun sank lower, and the shadows lengthened. Meanwhile, the epic feast of sea slug sat heavy in my belly, doing nothing extraordinary. My eyelids grew heavy, the day swirled away, and night overwhelmed me with a deep sleep.

I never did experiment any further in the matter, and in early May I returned to my glittery cosmopolitan homeland. I still look back fondly on my Mexican travels, and I recall with affection my fishermen friends, and I wish I could show them this wonderful city of magic, lights, and women. But I still wonder why the love potions of the sea never turned me into a wild beast like they were supposed to. Could it be that I forgot to use hot sauce?

Spicy sea cucumber tacos

3 sea cucumbers

2 cloves garlic

4 Tbs. olive oil

Corn tortillas

Hot sauce (optional)

Salt and pepper

Eviscerate the sea slugs just like you would a fish. Sift through the mushy innards and locate the strips of white, meaty flesh that run laterally along the inside of the rubbery body. These are what you will be eating. Separate these from the rest of the cucumber, which can be discarded. Cut up the flesh and drop it with the garlic into the hot olive oil. Stir the meat around until it has turned golden brown. Pile the meat into several warm corn tortillas, add hot sauce to taste (and if you dare), and eat and enjoy. You must brace yourself against whatever carnal urges enter your body. Meanwhile, take detailed notes and consider this an experiment of scientific value.

Final note: Sea cucumbers can be found locally at Nijiya Market, 1737 Post St., in Japantown. The cucumbers here are gutted, cleaned, and bundled in small, plastic packets that sell for $8.99. Call ahead at (415) 563-1901 to make sure the cucumbers are in.

Alastair Bland is a writer and traveler who lives in San Francisco.