Next add fresh fish, this is courtesy of a 3 hour spear fishing expedition by myself and captain Hammish of Free@Last. Now not all of this is spear fishing, a big part is just going about in your dinghy to find a good place (there are no signs!), there is also a fair bit of avoiding giant Great Barracuda, two different black tip reef sharks and a sting ray that was very mad - because we decided to shoot it with our spear, causing not a bit of harm though the spear stuck momentarily, he was sleeping though in the sand so rudely awaken. My aim put the spear in his wing rather than head, so he flapped twice dislodged the spear and took off. One note of cowardice, after discovering said sleeping sting ray, we retreated to the dingy and shot the spear from there. Our catch ended up being one Squirrel Fish (bait only, but also has poisoned barbs around his gills which we were unaware of), one crab and one Bar Jack. The Bar Jack was actually caught at the boat after we had returned from the hunt. I was snorkeling about Nikita as the wind had shifted and like any good captain wanted to see where we were lying as compared to our anchor. The Bar Jack stared to follow me and as I free dove down to him let me come eye to eye. Big mistake, I swam back to the dinghy and retrieved my spear sans any tip (more on this later) and swam back. There he was still curious though a little less brave, I think all Bahamas fish know the color of the pole spear, gold, and know what to do. Anyway I free dove again, and again he let me come right up to him, Rae Ann thinks given the absence of any other fish he wanted to make friends, I did not. AS we cam eye to eye, pole spear cocked, I let fly - bam right in the head, instant kill. The Bar Jack and the crab made very good eating.
The pole spear is a two part arrangement - a pole with rubber tubing for creating the sling shot like action and a screw on tip. There are different types of tips and I bought only one a trident type. I was told this was the best type, and it may be, as it has a shot gun like effect, e.g. you can have bad aim, as a result of its three barbed prongs. Well I like adventurous spear fishing, so will free dive down until I am positioned under a wreck for instance (where the big fish are) and shoot kind of blindly. This is rarely successful and leads to hitting solid objects. This approach broke two of my three pronged trident. As it did not shoot straight any longer we eventually broke off the third prong. Now it is essentially a bludgeoning type spear, but shoots straight!
After a clean up and some organizing we retired to a nearby beach, played, gathered some drift wood and ultimately built a nice fire. The kids ate roasted weaners, three a piece while the adults consumed adult type beverages. Then back to Free@Last for real dinner more adult drinks, observing fire works and laughter. Eventually the wall was hit at 10 pm (late for cruisers by the way) and kids needed their beds so off we went to Nikita.
At 2:30 the wind shifted again and came up to 22 knots, putting us on lee shore with quite a bit of wave action. One hour of anchor watch, looking at worst case escape routes and the wind died, though not the crazy bouncy waves.
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