Gourmet Fish

Michael went hunting to a new reef and came back to the boat with a Bar Jack (also known as Cibi Mancho, Reef Runner, Skip Jack, Bahamas Runner or Caranx Ruber for our marine scientist types) and a lobster. He killed, cleaned and cooked the Bar Jack (which was about 2.5-3 lbs) and it was VERY tasty. Our fish book said it was "excellent" in the food category and the book was correcto! The night before we enjoyed another helping of the Black Grouper Michael got in the Western Holandes.

The variety of fish and seafood we've eaten since we've been out has been nice. Whether we've caught it on a line (not often lately), speared it, shared it (when someone else had caught something), been given it or bought it - we've enjoyed a nice mix of fish and seafood. Mahi, tunas, grouper, snappers of many varieties - (called Pargos in the Latin countries), barracuda, wahoo, hogfish, parrotfish, lionfish, schoolmaster, mackerels, jacks, plus a variety of lobsters, crabs, conch and octopus. And who knows what we've been served in restaurants! We've enjoyed almost all of it - and some more than others. Last night's Bar Jack is definitely on the list of good eats!

We moved to a new place on Saturday morning - it's called the "hot tub" and still in the Eastern Holandes. It's a pretty spot but cagey to get into as it's surrounded by a reef and has many patch reefs and shallow spots within. It is very pretty and the view of many islands is quite nice. We were worried about bugs though as there are islands with lots of mangroves - but it wasn't too bad the first night (a few no-see-ums) and the second night was fine thanks to a nice breeze.

The weekends in Kuna Yala get strange. We don't know if this is a "summer" thing or year round. If it's year round it is a new phenomena since we were here last October to January. "Weekend warriors" show up - people in large, expensive, flashy sport fishing boats roar into the islands starting late Friday and leave on Sunday afternoon. They seem to head to the Eastern Holandes, Coco Banderas and Green Island. They come en masse. Someone said in the Coco B's that helicopters kept landing on one of the islands (scaring the Kuna women living there to death) for one of the boats. They run generators all night (to keep the air conditioning going), loud stereos and many big spotlights and in the water lights. They seem to have "issues" with anchoring correctly and often put out two anchors in busy anchorages where everyone else has out only one. (Matt R- this means they will swing differently when the winds and tides change - which can cause crashes). They don't seem to have charts - we watched them from our hot tub spot aim right for us, thinking we had a good spot - and we're surrounded by the reef. Suddenly they'd stop right before they'd hit. No wonder that boat hit the reef last weekend - and the poor reef got the worst of it (see previous entry). And finally, not only are these boats noisy and pushy - they also have these jet skis and big dinghies that tow around boogie boards and skiers. We watched one jet ski come toward us in the tub and run aground on the reef (then stood on the reef to get his ski off), then he hit the sand bar at least three times - stirring up the sea grass.

It makes you wish for a stinger missile.

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