Tuesday February 8, 2011

Again I was up before sunrise. Actually it starts getting light about one hour before the sun rises. The roosters in Hope Town are cock-a-doodling. The harbor is very peaceful. After sunrise, I jumped into the dingy and headed to the marina office. They have a very good Internet connection there and I wanted to get my email. Sandy sent me a message that I needed to call the nursing home where Mark Uhl is recuperating from a broken hip. The doctors wanted to change his medication and needed my approval. I used Skype to call the nurses station. When I finally go through to the nurse, she told me that they were going to keep Mark on the same medication and just increase the dose. Again the self abusive behavior is disturbing to his care givers. They just cannot get him to stop hitting himself in the face.

I tried to Skype Sandy, but was unable to make a connection. I think that it was too early for her. I sent here a love email instead.

When I returned to the boat to stow all of my gear for the ten mile trip to Marsh Harbor, a sailor named Dirk came by in his dingy. He asked me if I would like to go lobster hunting before we took off for Marsh Harbor. I told him that it had been at least 40 years since I last hunted lobster. Dirk said great. Lets go. I quickly jumped into my bathing suit and gathered my dive gear. Dirk told me to put the bottom part of the wet suit on while moored because it was going to be too rough to put on one we got to the reef.

I wiggled into the wet suit. I tossed my fins, mask and snorkel into the dingy along with my Hawaiian sling.

Dirk put the motor into forward and we headed out of the harbor for the reef. When we got to what Dirk thought would be a good hunting ground, he tossed out the anchor. We suited up and jumped into the 75 degree water of the Atlantic Ocean. As we swam over the reef, the tide surged back and forth giving me the impression that the fan coral and the staghorn coral were waving at me. I waved back.

Since I had a new Hawaiian sling, I was anxious to use it. Dirk saw some tentacles pointing out of a hole in the coral. He stuck his Hawaiian spear into the hole hoping the lobsters would come our and play. When they did, he surfaced and told me that they were baby to adolescent lobsters and they were not worth taking. We moved on. After an hour in the water, I started to get cold. I only have a half wet suit. Actually the sleeves are short and so are the bottoms. The suit only keeps the core of the body warm once the water seeps into the wet suit.

As soon a I got back into the boat, Dirk started waving at me and told me to bring the dingy to were he was. I fired up the motor and two minutes later, I was next to Dirk who was still in the water. He asked me to retrieve a flash light out of the dingy and hand it to him. I did. About five minutes later, Dirk surface with the biggest lobster that I have ever seen. Dirk told me to let him know when I was ready to head back. He said that he could hunt lobster all day.

Once I warmed up, we made one last dive. I saw a huge fish. This fish I thought was soo big, that it would have been able to feed 6 people for several days. The fish I spotted was very colorful and looked to me like it mite make a really good meal. I cocked the Hawaiian sling took aim at my prey and let the spear fly. It hit the fish in the back of the head. The fish started wiggling and convulsing in protest to the spear through its body.

I was really excited. My very first kill with a Hawaiian Sling.

Dirk and I surfaced at exactly the same time. I showed him my fish. I was multi colored with pink, turquoise, yellow and blue. Dirk said that it was a parrot fish. He told me that they are beautiful, but terrible tasting and it could make you sick if eaten and to throw it away. I did as he told me but reluctantly.

Dirk then found hiding in one of the cracks the largest lobster I have ever seen! This monster must have weighed close to ten pounds. It must have taken Dirk at least ten dives to spear and capture the lobster.

I took several photos of this beautiful creature as proof he existed before making its way to Dirks dinner table.

With the days lobster hunting a success Dirk dropped me off at my boat. I was empty handed by very pleased with myself for at least shooting a fish with my new weapon.

Once I returned from the hunt, my boating buddies were packed and ready to shove off for March Harbor.

I was just about 1:00 PM, I had less than 15 minutes to stow everything. I took a quick shower to wash off the salt water from my wet suit and body. Then motored back to Water Mark. I fired up the Honda and let it warm up for a few minutes, I tossed off the mooring ball. The trip from Hope Town to Marsh Harbor is just about 10 miles. I made this trip in just over two hours.

As I was motoring into March Harbor, Ellie and Jim were calling me on the marine radio. I was behind schedule and they were worried about me. The trip took a little longer than expected because I had to motor most of the way as the wind was blowing out of the NNW and Marsh Harbor was NNW. I did not mind, because the battery needed charging and the trickle charger from the motor helped charge the battery.

When I turned into March Harbor, I saw lots of boats and asked Ellie and Jim where they had anchored. They said in the same spot as before. I followed the track on the GPS right to them. I anchored next to them. There was a boat from Canada on the starboard side of Water Mark. I set the anchor and turned on the Anchor Drag alarm. This guy from Canada was freaking out. He kept yelling at me that I was anchored too close to his boat. I could not believe it. I was at least a football field distance away from him. But he kept yelling. At first I could not hear him because he was so far away. Finally I got the message and moved so that WaterMark was anchored away from the crazy Canadian.