“I’m thinking of going
spearfishing Thursday night if you’re interested.”
Mr. A’s statement
grabbed my attention; this was one of the adventures I had only read about and
I couldn’t wait to experience it firsthand! All of us SM’s actually hadn’t gone
into the ocean off Kosrae yet, we’ve been super busy with lesson plans and
trying to not act like complete tourists… it was interesting to me that my
first snorkeling experience in Kosrae would be at night. With a gun.
Thursday was a slow yet
relaxing day, we spent most of it half-heartedly touching up our finished
lesson plans and eating while watching Cast Away. “Wilson!” It’s a good thing
that we watched that movie after flying,
or else I would have had a harder time of it than I did. Planes and I have a
strained relationship.
But finally it was time
to go; we made a long work of grabbing our snorkels, masks, flashlights, fins,
and the spear guns and walked the short distance down to the beach. MaKayla and
I were the only teachers to go with Mr. A and his son, Xord, this time. Alisha
said that she was going to ‘work on her lessons plans’ for a bit longer, which
can be translated into: “I’m going to read over the highly detailed notes of
what I will be setting out to accomplish with my students on the first day of
school for about ten minutes, and then the exhaustion that seems to coincide
with the humidity here will come crashing down onto me and you will return to
find me asleep on the couch.”
Very exciting.
Anyways, after
reattaching my mask to the snorkel in the proper way, I struggled with my fins
while Xord easily slipped on his gear and was already looking around. Evidently
it may take me a while to master this new art. Soon though, the four of us were
heading off through the water, kicking bubbles into each other’s faces and
searching for small sea creatures among the sea grass. The salinity levels here
are so much lower than what they were in Hawaii, which is such a blessing!
“Er, er!” Came the
muffled exclamation from Mr. Alamo. We went to where he was standing only to
find that he had already managed to successfully spear a small fish. You have
to get it on the first try! I told
myself.
Fish sleep at night, so
we searched for them among the shelter of hunks of coral, seaweed-covered
rocks, or miniature sand dens. And the sand den that we were by was perfect for
hiding and was occupied by a sleepy tropical fish. We all got into a position
where we could shine our flashlights down into the hole and see the fish: a
reddish guppy with bulging eyes. “Shoot, shoot, shoot!!” Mr. A chimed in. Well,
as chime-y as you can get when you’re breathing through a tube. MaKayla aimed,
fired! And missed. Undeterred, she pulled the spear back until it clicked into
place and readied the gun once again. Then, an underwater breath, aim, and
fire! Another miss.
To keep this short… that
process went on for a while, and though the fish procured a great deal of side
scratches and tail wounds it was unrelenting in its attempts to avoid being
speared.
We swam on, and found
another rock with what seemed to the fish to be a good hiding place. Then the
gun was in my hands, I loaded it, and gave myself a little pep talk. “Don’t
worry Carissa, the fish will die quickly, just spear it through the brain.”
Now, I’m feeling really hypocritical right now, so to my fellow biologists –
please don’t look down on me. But we know that sometimes in the biology field
you have to kill smaller animals for research purposes, or feed adorable little
mice to snakes, so let’s just say I am preparing myself for that. It’s just a
fish, I… yeah. Oh goodness, it had a mom.
But nevertheless I
aimed the gun and fired. A miss. Now it may seem to you that if either MaKayla
or I were ever in a situation like Cast Away we would quickly perish, but let’s
all compare how he tried to catch fish the first time verses how well he was
able to catch fish after four years on that island. Ok, bad comparison, we
won’t be here that long. I loaded up the gun again and took careful aim, trying
to keep my eye at the same level as the gun as much as I could (I’ve never gone
shooting or anything like that, so I will admit I’m a total noob), fired, and
SPEARED THAT FISH! Insert: muffled squeal of exclamation and excitement. I
pulled the fish out from its hiding place and stood up, shining my flashlight
to look at my catch, a small guppy.
The metal went through
the fish right behind its head, and it flicked its fin desperately. Instantly a
wave of sadness washed over me. “I’m so sorry!” I cried; I had just ruined this
little guy’s fishy existence. Mr. A and Xord just laughed at me, and I handed
the fish over to Xord for him to put it on the string of wire that they had
brought. But during the gun to wire transition there was a violent thrashing, a
small splash, and my guppy was free. No! I mean, hooray the fish has a second
chance! We tried to follow it for a time, but it was quickly gone. I would like
to say it’s chilling around a hunk of coral with its fish-buds who are all
telling tall fish tales about the ‘time they got away,’ but he actually was probably
eaten by a shark. (Sorry for that unfortunate ending).
But the hunt wasn’t
over, and we kept moving, our fins propelling us through the ocean from rock to
coral, and at one place we saw a couple parrot fish. Then Mr. A hollered, and
we went to watch the cutest little octopus crawling along. He was a red-orange
with luminescent blue flecks all over, and that was just the coolest! We soon found
another good spot, and I was able to spear this next fish on the first try!
Water makes everything look bigger, so the fish looked to be around ten or more
inches, but when we brought it out of the water it was only seven or so. Ah, oh
well…
More swimming and then
we stopped at this large hunk of coral that was very promising. MaKayla and I
tried a couple unsuccessful times to hit anything, but this was such a teeming
niche that I couldn’t have cared less. I saw a couple guppies, some iridescent
sea urchins, a young camouflaged False Stonefish (apparently actual Stonefish are
very poisonous), and I was thrilled to see a couple legs of my favorite marine
creature: the brittle star! When we were standing up there was a flurry of
activity around the flashlight, miniscule creatures darted around our hands and
torsos. We first thought they were bugs, until we realized they were underwater
and I caught a few of them in my hands for a closer inspection. They were
crabs! Tiny crabs, the size of the bead on the end of a sewing pin! They varied
in hues of red and had six almost transparent legs, two tiny pinchers, and
little beady eyes sticking up on their heads. It was just the cutest thing,
until they decided to start pinching.
On the way heading back
we saw a four-legged blue starfish, and then a five-legged blue starfish. For
obvious reasons, we placed them on our heads and watched their legs curl around
our heads like a hat. We were teasing MaKayla about how the starfish was eating
her hair, and when Mr. A was taking it off he pulled a small bit of her hair,
“Oh no! I did not know starfish liked hair so much!” He joked. Poor MaKayla
didn’t understand the humor, and was freaking out until I called out Mr. A’s
part in her torture.
Then once we were back
at our apartment we rinsed off and checked our coral scratches (yes mom, I
cleaned the area and applied ointment. Don’t worry; I have a healthy fear of
infections). So all-in-all, it was one of the coolest things I’ve ever done,
and it won’t be the last! Next time, I’ll bring a camera.
And yes, Alisha was
asleep on the couch.
If this blog seemed to
be more about the animals than anything else, I’m not sorry. It’s who I am.
In other news: we have a
new housemate, a cute little lizard named Shakira; the internet connection is
so slow that I could write a whole letter, mail it, and get a reply in the time
it takes to check my Facebook site or send an email with an attachment (if God
wanted to teach me patience then He picked a fantastic way to do
it); we ran out of gas while doing driving tests; and there is chocolate fudge
cake mix on this island that has no dairy in it.
Blessings to you, and send frosting!
