Spearfishing is not like what you see in the movie “Cast Away,” where Tom Hanks kills a fish from 30 feet away by flinging a sharpened stick into shallow water. Spearfishing actually involves strapping on snorkel gear and swimming around with a spear and a sling made up of rubber tubing and shooting at the bigger reef-fish as they poke around in the coral.
The first time that I learned how to spearfish was about two weeks ago on a small island called Jelter. Out there the fish were plentiful and rather stupid. They din’t seem to notice when you cocked back your spear and they made aiming easier by staying in the same general area. By the end of that first day I had caught seven fish and was feeling pretty good about myself.
In Majuro, however, catching a fish is decidedly harder. This weekend I went out with some friends into the Majuro Lagoon to test my luck.
One of the problems of living in such a small community, and being a minority within that small community, is that everyone knows everything that you are doing. As we walked down to the water it was hard to hide what we were up to. We all had fins, snorkels and five and a half foot metal spears. As we walked everyone that we saw gave us questioning smiles and giggled with whomever they happened to be standing with. The one Marshallese friend going with us, Sonny, walked a few feet behind the group.
Once in the water I found there to be plenty of fish to go after, the only issue I had was that the fish were just too dang smart. All of the city and country stereotypes seemed to be true. The country fish were more docile and easier to get a hold of while the city fish were quick and always one step ahead of me and my spear.
I couldn’t catch anything and the ele around my waist, a wire belt where you hang the fish you have bagged by poking them through their eyes, was noticably empty. For some reason, every shot I took with my spear was just a little ways off in one direction or the other.
As I paddled around I saw a really big octopus with eyes as big as mine that could have saved me from a walk of shame back to my house empty handed, but I did not take a shot because I wasn’t sure if it was good to eat. Later on as I was telling my friend Jeremy about it (he has been spearfishing for two years) and he was surprised I hadn’t gone for it.
“Those are really good eating,” he said.
When I found out the process for catching an octopus however, I was happy I hadn’t done it. To catch an octopus you first get it riled up by poking it with your spear. Then, when it gets angry enough, you stick your hand at it and it will wrap all of its tentacles around your arm. Once this happens you bring it up to the surface, pull back its hood and bite it between the eyes to kill it.
Seriously, that is a little too hard-core for me.
Anyway, after five hours of fruitless fishing the whole group headed back with our eles hanging empty from around our waist.
Everyone we passed stared and pointed and Sonny walked a good 20 feet behind us.
Later that night a taxi driver told me he had seen me that day.
“Yes, I saw you walking,” he said. “I wondered, ‘where are all of the fish they caught today?’”
“We just ate them all raw on the beach,” I lied to him.
He didn’t believe me.
The love you give comes back in the end.
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