The cold hike in the rain confined me to the bed with a box of tissues, but I was determined to rest up. The allure of snorkeling with Manta Rays later that night was enough to keep me there when the boys announced they were going out hunting! They loaded up the snorkeling gear, Dad’s traditional Hawaiian sling pole spear with a rubber band, and a fishing knife and headed off to the the nearest State beach (where it’s legal to spear fish).
I awoke to my ecstatic brother bursting into the room– “I knifed it! I knifed it!!”
The astonished laugh of my husband filled the room as Dom told the story of their hunting adventures that day… He had cleverly smashed a purple sea urchin (which are destructive to the reef) and put it on the end of his long fishing knife. As the enquiring fish came in for a closer look, his quick reflexes prevailed and he stabbed it right through the tough scale armor of a brown unicorn fish!
Lukas had also managed to spear a blackish blue trigger fish with the traditional spear! He said it was extremely difficult since the fish reacted to the sound of the stretching rubber as if they knew what was coming! Plus you had to aim a bit in front of the fish since they are swimming!
When they set to cleaning the fish, we were all surprised at the texture of the scales of the fish. It almost felt like armored thick sandpappery leather skin instead of scales. Their triumph of actually catching the fish by hand dulled their sense of guilt for killing the pretty reef fishy…
We grillled the fish on the BBQ with salt, pepper and a squeeze of lemon. The brown unicorn fish had nice flavorful meat. If you are wonderingly about the black fish… we didn’t cook it… since it gushed out brownish gook when they were cleaning it out and it stunk to high heaven!!(Lukas: “this FISH is 90% poop!!”)
Love catching up on your fabulous trip but sorry you are sick! Sending love and prayers that you will recover very soon!
Keep posting your pictures and stories so I can vicariously live and travel with you!
Love and hugs… Rita
Hi Rita! Thankyou, luckily I recovered relatively quickly! 😄
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I’m glad it helped!:) We talked to a volunteer state beach ranger while snorkeling on the Kona coast to get the spear fishing info. Get ready for some awesome dolphin pictures too (we were at Two Step on the big island and snorkeled with sleeping dolphins)!