Position: N
22 21.144 W
075 07.793
We're
sitting at anchor in Thompson Bay, Long Island, another of our
favorite stops. Julie, as usual, is in the water. Yesterday, she
went snorkeling with some friends and found a lobster living in a
small cave in some rocks.
Our
friends ask “Do you have a spear?”
Julie
replies “Yes, but I've never used it. We've only had it for 7
years”.
“You
should try and kill the lobster” they say.
This
gets Julie thinking, (always a dangerous proposition).
“Hmm
how hard could it be? We have friends who hunt lobster all the time.
It does seem silly to have the spear and never use it. And some
fresh lobster would go down pretty well ...”
That
settles it. The next day she dons her snorkel gear and Mark's
way-too-big leather work gloves. The spiny lobsters down here in the
Bahamas are, well, spiny, and without heavy gloves, it's easy to get
poked when you try to handle one. With her trusty pole spear in
hand, she sets off toward shore.
The
spear has a piece of surgical rubber tubing attached at the
non-pointy end, allowing one to pull the spear back, stretching the
elastic. When released, the spear springs forward, hopefully hitting
and killing the target, in this case Julie's lobster. Unfortunately,
the first time she tries, the old elastic gives out and breaks under
the stress. This leaves her on the surface with a plain old 5' long
spear and a lobster about 8' below on the bottom.
She
provides Mark with a running commentary.
“I've
found it, but the spear elastic broke!”
She
dives down 3 more times and shoves the spear into the hole and
wiggles it around. The lobster emerges from the hole.
“I've
got it on the run!”
Mark,
watching her shenanigans from aboard Rachel, giggles and cheers her
on. She dives down a few more times. He notices her swimming away
from the lobster's hole.
“It's
running around on the bottom and I'm poking at it!”
Rachel's
captain nearly falls overboard because he is laughing so hard. When
asked if there's a problem, he replies “Nothing, dear. Nothing at
all.”
Not
having any luck with the spear, she swims dejectedly back to the
boat.
Score:
lobster 1, Julie 0.
She
spends about 10 minutes locating the lobster and another several
minutes “mopping” it. She calls out a progress report to Mark,
still aboard Rachel.
“I
think I've traumatized it!”
Mark
is once again having difficulty staying aboard Rachel due to the
effects of his convulsive laughter. Several photo ops are missed
because he's finding it difficult to see through the tears.
Julie
comes to realize that swimming around traumatizing the lobster isn't
going to do the trick and reluctantly gives up, swimming back home
with her mop.
Score:
lobster 2, Julie still 0
That
evening at happy hour she tells friends the story and one of them
says “I have a spare elastic if you want it.”
He
brings it over and leaves it with her. She installs it on the spear,
gives it a good stretch and it breaks! Another dry rotted piece of
rubber.
Hmm.
(Oh no! More “thinking”!) She decides to cut the ends off the
new elastic and retie it with our old string. She whips the elastic
onto the string and now she's back in business, after a good test
she's ready for attempt number three.
The
next day she goes off again. At first she has trouble finding the
lobster as the visibility has got pretty bad with lots of sand being
stirred up from the high winds. Finally she finds the hole and
there's the lobster staring up at her, taunting her. Arrogant beast!
She shoots the spear 5 or 6 times to no avail. Finally, the lobster
emerges from the hole and, with one last derisive wave of it's
antennae, swims, really fast, off into the distance. Wow! She never
realized they could move like that!
Score:
lobster 3, Julie still 0
Later,
we tell other friends the story during yet another happy hour on
another boat. After the laughter dies down, Julie says
“I've
decided that if it wants to live as much as that, I just don't have
the heart to kill it, so I'm going to stop trying.”
Final
score: lobster for a win with 4, Sweet Julie still 0, but also a
winner in our book.
