I watch from the dinghy as Liam the 12 year old boy on Gromit proudly waves his speared lobster in the air and swims quickly to his dinghy to secure his catch. I have noticed a shiny gleam in his eyes ever since we started out this afternoon. He seems different, more focused and excited with the spear gun in hand. It must be totally thrilling to chase after the fish and successfully snare one. I imagine it to be even more exciting than when we catch a fish off the stern of Salty Ginger.
I am happy to sit in the dinghy with the girls sunbathing and catching a small taste of the excitement from the sidelines. Liam has just come up with a nice size parrot fish and we are all hooting and hollering. He is so determined as he hunts. I watch him as he stays in one spot diving down and back up and down again. I asked him after what was happening and it was a battle between him and three lobsters. Luckily he won one!
Graham swims over to the dinghy and tells us there is a huge 8 foot shark swimming about. He points it out and we can see it over the side of the boat. Liam is off a ways and continues to spear fish. I feel the intensity of the situation dial up to high. As a fish is speared and blood spills into the water I worry. Finally much to Liam's disappointment Mike calls it. The shark is just way to interested in us....time to move on. Lucky for Liam the bay is huge and there are plenty of hunting spots to continue his adventure.
I feel a bit bad for Graham that he doesn't have Alex here to fish with. Amelia and I aren't huge fish eaters and Graham doesn't want to take more than we need from the sea. For today he seems content to be a spectator and snorkel about watching the show.
Over the past few days we have all had run-ins with the sharks. At Gromit one shark was standing guard at their swim ladder so they had to shoo it away with their flippers to climb aboard.
Today as the girls were trying to teach me to wind surf we drifted back to this area where we have been dumping our food scraps and we got a bit of a fright to see our familiar friend under us again. We towed the wind surfer back up wind and began again. Made the process even more exciting.
Yesterday as Amelia was helping Graham tighten the self steering at the back of the boat she was leaned way over the back transom holding herself on with the ladder that was folded up. Unfortunately though the ladder wasn't tied on and she made a big splash and fell in. She quickly got back on board and Graham said it wasn't moments later that a barracuda and sting ray showed up to see if the splash was food.
All of this is very exciting but the truth is that sharks, barracudas and sting rays don't want to eat people. There have only been a few minor attacks over the years in the Bahamas and they usually only occur during a feeding frenzy but it is so hard to remember this as we look down at them in this crystal clear shallow water swimming about.
Oh and speaking of feeding frenzies, the Gromit have been sharing their spoils. They have hosted two fabulous lunches. One with a variety of baked fish and another with trevally sushi and sashimi.
Right now we are 5 miles out from arriving at the Abacos in the Bahamas after a three night passage. The sail has been wonderful. Highlights were dolphins, cinnamon buns, daal and meeting up with our other buddy boat Tahina at sea!a
No comments:
Post a Comment