Spear Fishing
It's been raining heavily off and on for the past several days with gusty winds. If you came here this week seeking Maldives' glorious wall-to-wall sun, you might think the flight had made a diversion and taken you to New Orleans by mistake, where Hurricane Katrina is just making landfall.
I was invited by my optician to spend last Saturday fishing on an island named Huraa. He also invited another American working here in Male' who works for an Australian company that does relief aid consulting and who is here with his wife, a native of Papua New Guinea. Lena is in Siberia visiting her family, so it's a chance for me to have an adventure that she would probably just as soon avoid.
We left Friday late afternoon in pouring rain for the hour and fifteen minute dhoni ride to the island, but the rain stopped soon after we left port and it was a pleasant trip. You sometimes see groups of small dolphin porpoising alongside on such trips but this time all we saw were the flying fish. The first time you see fish fly, you think your eyes are playing tricks on you. They really do fly and they really are fish.
The inhabited section of Huraa is an island about 1 km square with one-story stone houses with tin roofs, most of which are quite tiny by American standards. They are well built though and have electricity, adequate plumbing and cable TV, and the 750 residents seem comfortable enough in them. We stayed in a guest house that was clean and adequate.
We visited the home of one of the optician's friends in the evening. After a drink of coconut milk from fruits freshly plucked from the palm tree on his property, we took a walk around the island. There's a mosque, of course. There's a "main street", 20 meters wide, with souvenir shops along each side. Tourists come to the island from the resorts on "excursions". There are two resort islands practically touching Huraa, Club Med and Four Seasons. Both are closed until next year because of tsunami damage. The loss of the resort jobs has hit the residents here in the pocketbook, but they seem to be taking it in stride and there is relief assistance from the government.
After our walk we returned to the home of our host's friend for a delicious dinner of Maldivian lobster and snapper, both prepared to perfection and, of course, fresh caught that day. I’ve eaten in some very good Michelin-star seafood restaurants but this was certainly the best seafood I’ve ever tasted.
The aid consultant and his wife stayed up for massages from the owner of the guest house, who works as a masseuse at one of the resorts, but I went to bed. I was up earlier than the others the next day and sat in front of the guest house watching the island residents come and go. There is a strong community life and the people are mostly family-oriented. They smile easily and laugh together as they meet to begin their daily activities. A woman was showing off her newborn to neighbors while a couple of smartly-dressed teenage girls sat and gossiped. Male’ is more stressed than this laconic island, but even there I’m struck with how much happier people are in general in Maldives than in the U.S. despite, or perhaps because of, the material disparity. Life here is the antithesis of American materialism, paranoia and alcoholism, though a small minority are moving in that direction. The strong Islamic faith keeps the focus on family and community. People live thrust together in close proximity in the same community over long periods of time in contrast to western-style mobility, isolation and egotism.
We were supposed to wait at the guest house for our host to come at 9:00, but the aid consultant and his wife left early for coffee. The fisherman arrived for me on his motor bike, one of only about a dozen vehicles on the island, and I rode on the back the 300 meters to the restaurant. We could well have walked, of course, but no self-respecting Maldivian male would think of doing so if he has a motor. As we ripped along the narrow sandy roads and weaved around palm trees at about twice the speed I would have considered prudent, I calculated my chances of getting to breakfast without suffering a serious injury, but we arrived intact.
The average Maldivian's idea of organizing things is roughly comparable to the Italian philosophy of life pre-Berlusconi: don’t worry, everything will work out in the end. In fact it usually does. I ordered coffee, but it never came. Instead, a number of plates of breakfast foods arrived. Some had been ordered, it seemed. There was one extra and it was assigned to me. It turned out that it had been ordered by the fisherman, who left and returned, but they just fixed the same thing again for him. I never did get any coffee. Sometimes life seems to know better than you what you need or don’t need. Coffee tends to bring on motion sickness and we would soon be on a small boat tossing about in rough seas.
But not before waiting out a torrential rainstorm that lasted two hours. We sat in the restaurant and talked politics. That can be unwise in a country ruled since 1978 by an elected president usually described as "autocratic", and where interference by foreigners in local affairs is most unwelcome, but people do want to talk and I don’t exactly have radical ideas. The country mostly needs investment to make good private sector jobs for young people, I advised. In that way, it’s not so different from Kalamazoo, Michigan where I lived before coming here, or from Germany or Brazil or China for that matter. I suggested looking at Singapore and trying to understand how their model for success can be applied here. They said that they thought Maldivians were spoiled and lazy compared to Singapore. I countered that it’s the prospect of good jobs that make people ambitious, and if they had them, they would be as ambitious as anyone, perhaps too much so.
Finally the weather cleared and we set out in the fisherman’s nine meter dhoni powered by a five horsepower outboard. There was just room for the five of us in the open deck boat. The sea was rough after the storm and the salty spray splashed over us as we slammed into the waves. Being soaked and with a stiff breeze in my face, it’s the only time I’ve felt at all cold in Maldives. After 30 minutes we reached a reef. The fisherman put on goggles, mask and fins, took his three meter home-built spear, and set off fishing.
The aid consultant and I also took to the water to have a look around the reef. There were the usual reef fish—bright blue and yellow surgeon fish that have a scalpel-like fin but are very docile if you leave them alone, parrot fish that really do have a face like a parrot and which chew on the coral for the algae, and the many others that make snorkeling the reef like swimming in a tropical aquarium. The water was cloudy from the storm. Usually it’s crystal clear. It's usually a constant 28C and today was warmer than the air. I did tire of it after a while, though, and came back to the boat. Forty years ago I used to hoist myself up over the end of a canoe in open water with ease. Since then I’ve put on weight. The aid consultant, in worse shape than me, had already been hoisted aboard. He and our host, also heavy, positioned themselves on my side of the boat so that the edge was practically at water level and I managed with all my might to struggle back up ungracefully. Five beautiful red fish about 15-20 cm lay on the deck of the boat, four soldier fish and a reef trout.
The fisherman dropped us off at a small island about 30 meters across while he and our host went off to try their luck elsewhere. We were still cold and there were dead tree limbs around so we tried to build a fire on the beach. Everything was still wet from the rain except for some reeds that had already dried in the wind, and the inside of a dry coconut shell which, when broken open, made a good kindling. Dried coconut shells are the cooking fuel of choice on Huraa. With some effort we got a nice little fire going.
The boat came back for us before long but they hadn’t managed to catch anything else. It was no problem, though, the five fish were plenty. We had an absolutely marvelous meal of them at the fisherman’s home.
Before returning to Male’ we visited a Frenchman’s wooden safari boat under construction on the beach for the past 16 months. Safari boats are live-aboard boats that cruise the islands taking divers and surfers to remote locations. This one is big, 35 meters, with three decks, and is beautifully designed and appointed. It’s supposed to go into the water in two weeks, to be christened “Ocean Dancer” and promoted to Florida divers and surfers. We speculated as to how they were going to get it into the water. The owner, David, told us, “they know how, they do it all the time”. I’d like to see it.
To get home, we needed to catch the speedboat from Club Med that takes construction workers back to Male’ at 6 PM. I was sure we would be late for it. In Maldives, there is no past and no future, only the present. It’s not unusual for people to find themselves at some moment in time not in the place where they ought to be at that moment, confused and disoriented as to how to be in that other place. The motor bike came for us at the guest house and took us, one at a time, at breakneck speed, to the fisherman’s boat which would ferry us to the speedboat. As we set out across the water, the only thing that surprised me was that the speedboat was still in sight by the time we got there, making it’s way out of the harbor at low speed, and that it stopped to wait for us. We lept from the dhoni onto the speedboat, both of them tossing about in the light waves of the harbor. I stood on the deck of the speedboat as the sun set and the stars came out, talking idly with my optician until the heavy spray drove us below decks. We were back in Male’ by 7 PM.
I was invited by my optician to spend last Saturday fishing on an island named Huraa. He also invited another American working here in Male' who works for an Australian company that does relief aid consulting and who is here with his wife, a native of Papua New Guinea. Lena is in Siberia visiting her family, so it's a chance for me to have an adventure that she would probably just as soon avoid.
We left Friday late afternoon in pouring rain for the hour and fifteen minute dhoni ride to the island, but the rain stopped soon after we left port and it was a pleasant trip. You sometimes see groups of small dolphin porpoising alongside on such trips but this time all we saw were the flying fish. The first time you see fish fly, you think your eyes are playing tricks on you. They really do fly and they really are fish.
The inhabited section of Huraa is an island about 1 km square with one-story stone houses with tin roofs, most of which are quite tiny by American standards. They are well built though and have electricity, adequate plumbing and cable TV, and the 750 residents seem comfortable enough in them. We stayed in a guest house that was clean and adequate.
We visited the home of one of the optician's friends in the evening. After a drink of coconut milk from fruits freshly plucked from the palm tree on his property, we took a walk around the island. There's a mosque, of course. There's a "main street", 20 meters wide, with souvenir shops along each side. Tourists come to the island from the resorts on "excursions". There are two resort islands practically touching Huraa, Club Med and Four Seasons. Both are closed until next year because of tsunami damage. The loss of the resort jobs has hit the residents here in the pocketbook, but they seem to be taking it in stride and there is relief assistance from the government.
After our walk we returned to the home of our host's friend for a delicious dinner of Maldivian lobster and snapper, both prepared to perfection and, of course, fresh caught that day. I’ve eaten in some very good Michelin-star seafood restaurants but this was certainly the best seafood I’ve ever tasted.
The aid consultant and his wife stayed up for massages from the owner of the guest house, who works as a masseuse at one of the resorts, but I went to bed. I was up earlier than the others the next day and sat in front of the guest house watching the island residents come and go. There is a strong community life and the people are mostly family-oriented. They smile easily and laugh together as they meet to begin their daily activities. A woman was showing off her newborn to neighbors while a couple of smartly-dressed teenage girls sat and gossiped. Male’ is more stressed than this laconic island, but even there I’m struck with how much happier people are in general in Maldives than in the U.S. despite, or perhaps because of, the material disparity. Life here is the antithesis of American materialism, paranoia and alcoholism, though a small minority are moving in that direction. The strong Islamic faith keeps the focus on family and community. People live thrust together in close proximity in the same community over long periods of time in contrast to western-style mobility, isolation and egotism.
We were supposed to wait at the guest house for our host to come at 9:00, but the aid consultant and his wife left early for coffee. The fisherman arrived for me on his motor bike, one of only about a dozen vehicles on the island, and I rode on the back the 300 meters to the restaurant. We could well have walked, of course, but no self-respecting Maldivian male would think of doing so if he has a motor. As we ripped along the narrow sandy roads and weaved around palm trees at about twice the speed I would have considered prudent, I calculated my chances of getting to breakfast without suffering a serious injury, but we arrived intact.
The average Maldivian's idea of organizing things is roughly comparable to the Italian philosophy of life pre-Berlusconi: don’t worry, everything will work out in the end. In fact it usually does. I ordered coffee, but it never came. Instead, a number of plates of breakfast foods arrived. Some had been ordered, it seemed. There was one extra and it was assigned to me. It turned out that it had been ordered by the fisherman, who left and returned, but they just fixed the same thing again for him. I never did get any coffee. Sometimes life seems to know better than you what you need or don’t need. Coffee tends to bring on motion sickness and we would soon be on a small boat tossing about in rough seas.
But not before waiting out a torrential rainstorm that lasted two hours. We sat in the restaurant and talked politics. That can be unwise in a country ruled since 1978 by an elected president usually described as "autocratic", and where interference by foreigners in local affairs is most unwelcome, but people do want to talk and I don’t exactly have radical ideas. The country mostly needs investment to make good private sector jobs for young people, I advised. In that way, it’s not so different from Kalamazoo, Michigan where I lived before coming here, or from Germany or Brazil or China for that matter. I suggested looking at Singapore and trying to understand how their model for success can be applied here. They said that they thought Maldivians were spoiled and lazy compared to Singapore. I countered that it’s the prospect of good jobs that make people ambitious, and if they had them, they would be as ambitious as anyone, perhaps too much so.
Finally the weather cleared and we set out in the fisherman’s nine meter dhoni powered by a five horsepower outboard. There was just room for the five of us in the open deck boat. The sea was rough after the storm and the salty spray splashed over us as we slammed into the waves. Being soaked and with a stiff breeze in my face, it’s the only time I’ve felt at all cold in Maldives. After 30 minutes we reached a reef. The fisherman put on goggles, mask and fins, took his three meter home-built spear, and set off fishing.
The aid consultant and I also took to the water to have a look around the reef. There were the usual reef fish—bright blue and yellow surgeon fish that have a scalpel-like fin but are very docile if you leave them alone, parrot fish that really do have a face like a parrot and which chew on the coral for the algae, and the many others that make snorkeling the reef like swimming in a tropical aquarium. The water was cloudy from the storm. Usually it’s crystal clear. It's usually a constant 28C and today was warmer than the air. I did tire of it after a while, though, and came back to the boat. Forty years ago I used to hoist myself up over the end of a canoe in open water with ease. Since then I’ve put on weight. The aid consultant, in worse shape than me, had already been hoisted aboard. He and our host, also heavy, positioned themselves on my side of the boat so that the edge was practically at water level and I managed with all my might to struggle back up ungracefully. Five beautiful red fish about 15-20 cm lay on the deck of the boat, four soldier fish and a reef trout.
The fisherman dropped us off at a small island about 30 meters across while he and our host went off to try their luck elsewhere. We were still cold and there were dead tree limbs around so we tried to build a fire on the beach. Everything was still wet from the rain except for some reeds that had already dried in the wind, and the inside of a dry coconut shell which, when broken open, made a good kindling. Dried coconut shells are the cooking fuel of choice on Huraa. With some effort we got a nice little fire going.
The boat came back for us before long but they hadn’t managed to catch anything else. It was no problem, though, the five fish were plenty. We had an absolutely marvelous meal of them at the fisherman’s home.
Before returning to Male’ we visited a Frenchman’s wooden safari boat under construction on the beach for the past 16 months. Safari boats are live-aboard boats that cruise the islands taking divers and surfers to remote locations. This one is big, 35 meters, with three decks, and is beautifully designed and appointed. It’s supposed to go into the water in two weeks, to be christened “Ocean Dancer” and promoted to Florida divers and surfers. We speculated as to how they were going to get it into the water. The owner, David, told us, “they know how, they do it all the time”. I’d like to see it.
To get home, we needed to catch the speedboat from Club Med that takes construction workers back to Male’ at 6 PM. I was sure we would be late for it. In Maldives, there is no past and no future, only the present. It’s not unusual for people to find themselves at some moment in time not in the place where they ought to be at that moment, confused and disoriented as to how to be in that other place. The motor bike came for us at the guest house and took us, one at a time, at breakneck speed, to the fisherman’s boat which would ferry us to the speedboat. As we set out across the water, the only thing that surprised me was that the speedboat was still in sight by the time we got there, making it’s way out of the harbor at low speed, and that it stopped to wait for us. We lept from the dhoni onto the speedboat, both of them tossing about in the light waves of the harbor. I stood on the deck of the speedboat as the sun set and the stars came out, talking idly with my optician until the heavy spray drove us below decks. We were back in Male’ by 7 PM.
posted by Steven Jon Halasz at 6:15 AM
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