worth the wait

It’s a little late but I hope that you have all had a wonderful Thanksgiving!  Without all the cold weather and runners getting ready for the Turkey Trot, the holiday almost snuck right by me unnoticed.  But, Gabrielle and I were able to make the most out of the day with some help from Ma and Pa Perkins who sent a couple packages with some essential Thanksgiving items like canned turkey, canned sweet potatoes, and canned gravy.  And I’m not being facetious – that’s some seriously upscale living.  I’m sad I wasn’t able to be home with the family but it was a great day and a lot of my students wished me Happy Thanksgiving even though I’m pretty sure they don’t know what the holiday is.  What am I thankful for?  Obviously my parents for being amazing and generous, Gabrielle for putting up with Morning Scott, and lastly the rat poison that my 8^th grade neighbor gave me.  Hopefully now I won’t have to worry about all the lentils mysteriously disappearing from the top of the fridge.  

Our Thanksgiving feast.  Canned turkey mixed with stuffing, cucumber onion salad, marshmallow sweet potatoes, and cranberry sauce!

 I’m also thankful for being able to do what I’ve wanted to do since before I came to Pohnpei – spearfish.  About three weeks ago, Tony, a friend from church and father of one of my students, took me to a local craftsman who sold me a handmade speargun for just $35.  Since then, my no-ocean blues have gone away and I’ve managed to make it out to the water at least once a week.  Whether on a boat or off the reef of Nahlap Island, I have been and will be having ample opportunities to do some serious fishing.  My first time out on the boat with Tony and his wife was amazing.  Not knowing anything about spearfishing or really, fishing in general, I had a lot to learn. 

Tony taking me out on his boat on a beautiful Sunday afternoon.

It turns out that all the good fish like to hide out and swim along the coral reefs surrounding much of Pohnpei.  And since these fish are a lot smarter than people give them credit for, it’s all about patience.  I learned that the best way to catch these guys is to swim down until you’re about 30-50 feet underwater (or whatever is deep enough to make you question yourself), grab onto a piece of coral, and just wait.  Usually, when you dive down, you scare all the surrounding fish into their hiding places, but after you wait for a little while, their curiosity drives them out of the coral and back towards you to investigate.  After expending the energy to get to that depth, I would say I have a lung capacity of about 30 seconds.  Hopefully, that is enough time to wait for a fish to get close enough and release the spear.  The most disheartening thing to happen is when you wait this long for a real beautiful fish, your lungs are screaming and your muscles are aching, you get a perfect opportunity, aim, shoot, and miss.  The biggest fish I’ve speared was so deep that the surface of the water looked a like a distant memory shimmering above me.  I speared it high – a little below its fin – and as I was bringing it to the surface, it ripped itself from my spear and darted away.  The water muffled my scream of frustration but if you could read those air bubbles, they would have been filled with four-letter words. 

Lurking behind some coral.  Believe it or not, this is the cloudiest I have ever seen the water here.

On a different day, when we went fishing during a thunderstorm.  The visibility under the water was maybe two or three times the visibility in the air - which was a really interesting experience.  The black dot in the center is the top of my head.

The fish that Tony and I did catch went to his wife who stayed up on the boat line-fishing – she was much more successful than either of us.   One thing I’ve learned here is that Pohnpeians like their fish fresh.  By fresh, I mean that Tony’s wife scaled them and gave them back to us to eat raw off the bone.  We went back to the boat to take a break and we’d eat the fish that had been swimming beside us in the ocean only ten minutes before.  It’s kind of like a jacked-up version of sushi where you don’t bother with the rice, seaweed, cucumber, or preparation of any sort at all.  Add it to the list of weird things I’ll happily eat.

My first catch of the day, ready to eat!

 Recently, I also got to get up close and personal with my competition.  Off the dock of Nahlap, I was having a particularly bad day fishing when I spotted a huge school of reef fish in close range.  Excitedly, I maneuvered through some coral structures to sneak up on them.  Right as I was almost close enough to take aim, a 4 foot flash of silver streaked across my path and stopped my progress immediately.  I guess I made a pretty enthusiastic 180 degree turn because when I surfaced, the local guy I was with couldn’t stop laughing.  It was hard for me to have a similar sense of humor after getting a “friendly” hello from Mr. Shark.  Some of my fears were assuaged when I saw the same shark an hour or so later and nothing bad happened.  My school counselor said that their bites are accidental and that they don’t really like the taste of people - so I guess that counts for something.  I wonder what you have to be doing for a shark to accidentally bite you…

Gabrielle in the shark-infested waters of Nahlap Island.  I think it's worth it :)

Getting a gun has gotten me all sorts of awesome offers though – I have plans with my neighbor to go out to the reef after school tomorrow.  It should be a great way to unwind after a long, hot day in the classroom.  Life is good.