February 1, 2014.
My friend Steve seems to
be a good guy. Intelligent, well spoken and successful in life. Yet
sometimes when I watch him clean fish I begin to wonder about him.
When I clean fish I do it
on the foredeck so I can use the anchor washdown pump to clean up
afterwards. It sometimes makes a huge mess and I have to spend a bit
of time washing blood and fish scales down the side decks and out the
scuppers.
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Steves boat has a great
sugar scoop stern. He puts his cutting board on the lowest level of
the sugar scoop and fillets away. Clean up is much easier this way
but in an effort to save wear and tear on his back he does something
that gives me the shivers.
He stands on the swim
ladder in knee deep water as he works on the fish near waist level.
In most anchorages this isn't an issue but when we drop the hook in
Double Breasted Cay there is cause for concern.
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When you get back to the
big boat after a day of fishing the sharks are already there milling
about. Its really the only anchorage down here that this phenomenon
is so prevalent. The sharks at Double Breasted know the dinghy means
fish scraps and when they hear the dinghy its like somebodies ringing
the dinner bell. Boom, they're there.
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So while Steve stands in
knee deep water with blood running off the transom the sharks are
darting back and forth right below him. He says he pays attention to
them and they don't really bother him even though once in a while
they'll bump the ladder hes balanced on. I'd fillet my own thumb off
if I had to keep one eye on the sharks while I was cleaning a fish.
These aren't some trained, hand fed Nurse Sharks like up at Compass Cay. But it works for him....
We prefer to make the
sharks work for their handouts. After we clean a good sized fish
we'll tie it to a line with a float on it and toss it overboard.
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6 comments:
Hey - Ya' gotta' have a little excitement in life...they know my feet aren't a food source...I think.
Mostly we see Lemon sharks, Black Tips, Reefs. Theres also Nurse sharks with an occasional Bull shark. Once every two years or so we encounter a Hammerhead. As soon as the locals get wind of a Hammerhead in the area his hours are numbered. The locals think the Hammerheads are too unpredictable and nasty so they hunt them down and kill them ASAP.
Steve, They don't know they don't like your feet until they try them....
I haven't made my peace with the whole shark issue yet. Gonna take some time to get used to that.
Deb
S/V Kintala
www.theretirementproject.blogspot.com
If sharks were swimming around me like that, I'd have to hose out the back of my shorts after hosing down the scoop!
Ah I pulled Steve's trick the first year down. After the first run in with the sharks is was up to the bow with the wash down. I now carry a 4 ft 2x8 to use to clean fish with. Then like you , I used a 1/4 " nylon line and a fish head. Much excitement I will say no more.
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