LOOK 0501: Go Fish
Words by: CL
lKeeping a journal is hard when you don't even write your everyday thoughts down. And to be honest, since moving to Hawaii, we've found ourselves on too many adventures to really write down; plus, somethings are better remembered in your head. However, the daily combination of surfing, running, waterfalls and endless sunsets doesn't leave us much to complain about, just simply too busy living to inhale all that has happened and type it into a little box on a screen. But because I want this journal to live on, for whoever finds themselves reading this, here's the story of a fish.
Thursday afternoons aren't usually the ones you think about or the one's you remember but when you ship yourself off to an island that never drops below seventy degrees and you can no longer remember the last time you wore shoes, it clears up space in your mind to remember beautiful evenings. It was 3:45 in the afternoon and we had pulled into the parking lot at Kiholo Bay−three fools and one true fisherman. We made our way to the lagoon, coarse sand weaving through our toes. At the lagoon, we walked to its farthest point and that's where we set up shop. The water at Kiholo is special; a mix of fresh water and saltwater, it's completely clear, bright teal and full of various animals far below its surface. If you just stand and stare at the lagoon, you'll notice how alive it actually is. Fish will launch themselves out of the water, turtles lurk below, sea snails line the rocks. It's a true sanctuary. Gabe, the fishing expert, brought two rods for us to use. My dad was eager to learn and probably the main reason we were even there; my sister trailed closely behind. Within minutes, both rods were cast into the water with a whip of the wrist as the bait flew like a golfball far into the water. Immediately, they began to reel in their line, creating light splashing along the surface of the water to mimic a fish. It was rinse and repeat for a little bit in the beginning; cast, reel, cast, reel until out of the corner of my eye, I saw Gabe stumbling on some rocks. I thought he'd slipped but as he found his footing, he grounded himself into a spot and began to pull. And just like that, as it seemed, a fish about 12 inches in length launched out of the water, squirming around relentlessly until it surrendered into Gabe's hands. He showed us how to a gut a fish and as I watched it bleed out onto the rocks it was a strange feeling; it felt purely anatomical, like dissecting a pig in your high school biology class. Fishing is so common and dead, frozen fish are all over grocery stores that despite never having gone fishing before, watching him catch a fish, as amusing as it was, felt like I could nod, say "cool" and then move onto something else. But what really caught my eye and my attention was afterwards. He just tossed the fish onto the rocks, set up his rod and casted again. Cast, reel, cast, reel. And the fish just lay on those rocks, scales reflecting the disappearing sunlight, motionless. It didn't feel or look like something had just died but looked and felt like a coin on the ground, a heads-up penny--pick it up or leave it for some else to have. The normality of it all left an eerie feeling inside but washed quickly away with he sun, as most things do. We kept the fish, stuffing it into a Walmart grocery bag. By then it was 6:30 and the sun was running out. The gate also was going to close at 7 so we had to really get a move on. Once you get out to the lagoon at Kiholo, it's all boulder-like lava rocks until you return to the sandy beach so even though it's a short walk, by the time we got to the beach we had 15 minutes to go two miles to the parking lot. So, like any anxious dumbass not wanted to get locked into Kiholo Bay, I offered to run back to possibly catch the security guard before the gate closed. In a Midnight Palms t-shirt and a pair of slippers, I tied up my hair and started booking it to the gate. As I ran, the slippers surprisingly didn't slow me down. The sun had set by then but it was still hot and humid. With each step, my feet sank into the rocky sand. My breath eventually steadied out after the first 200 feet and for the next two miles I paced my way to the parking lot. And with about 30 seconds to spare until the clock hit 7 o'clock, I walked sweatily up to the security guard profusely apologizing for getting out so late. I made up a story that my dad fell on the rocks (which he actually did but was not injured) and that two more of us were still making their way back. He was so kind and so patient with us that my dad offered him a fillet of the fish. By then it was dumping thick, heavy raindrops. We were all exhausted, smelt of dead fish guts and sweat but like the fish, once we stopped squirming, running and chasing the last of daylight, we surrendered; we surrendered to the end of an eventful evening of newness, familiarity and the strangeness of watching a fish take its last breath. |