Fishing and swimming again

Once again Megan and I had an opportunity to go out on a boat. Another math instructor here, Dennis, goes out quite frequently so we joined him and once again we had a boat load of fun :)

We left at around 1pm and headed for a place in the lagoon called Manta Road. Appropriately named, Manta Road is where people quite frequently see manta rays. We had no such luck. We went during low tide and this is when visibility is at its worst so we may have been swimming with them and not known it.

We did get to swim with this school of fish though. I was having fun doing underwater video and someone decided to have some fun...



After leaving manta road we went to the outer reef for some more swimming and snorkeling. Megan and I were swimming together and Dennis told us he had seen a 12 foot shark and motioned where he saw it. Megan and I decided we would also try to find it. We had no such luck. But we did get to see some other cool fish. I saw several clown fish (Nemo) and one fish cleaning another fish.

By now it was late afternoon and Dennis wanted to try some fishing so we went outside the reef and scanned the horizon for feeding birds. Nearly 30 minutes went by before we saw some but once we spotted them Dennis gunned the engine and we were on our way. Megan and I both put lines in the water while Dennis drove. Here is what 'hand' fishing looks like...



And one of me...



After only a few minutes of fishing I caught my first fish a skipjack tuna. Shortly after that I caught my second fish. As I was pulling in my third fish Megan hooked her first fish. At the end of the day I had caught 4 Tuna, Megan caught one and we each had one on the line that got away. This all took place in 45 minutes. By now the cooler was full of 5 giant fish probably 10 or more pounds each, although I don't really know, and we were eight miles off of the lagoon. Of the distance Dennis said "That probably isn't smart". So we headed home.

On our way home we say a lot of sea creatures. The first thing we saw was some kind of brown whale, probably about 10 feet in length it was about 40 feet from our boat. The next thing we saw was a small dolphin. The dolphin was quite a but further way but it did jump in and out of the water so we headed towards it. Once we were very close to the dolphin we noticed that we were surrounded by a pod of dolphins that was jumping in and out of the water all around us. They were very curious and swam along the bow of the boat while it was moving. We even got a video...



The next thing we encountered where flying fish, and a lots of them. These a extremely fun to watch as the skim a few inches over the water for 15-20 feet. While descending some of them will hover so close to the water that their fin touches and they proceed to 'swim' generating more speed thus more lift and they are airborne again without getting back into the water. It is probably one of those things you have to see for yourself.

When we returned to the harbor we where invited to come aboard a 40 foot sailboat. The boat, or yacht as they referred to it, is owned by a couple that is sailing around the pacific. They are doing so very slowly. They left Seattle, WA in 1993 and have been working and sailing all through the pacific. We had a very nice evening with chatting and hearing about their experiences. They have been in Pohnpei since May so we also got some information about the island.

We returned home at 8pm and had quite a bit of work to do cleaning, skinning, and filleting our fish. Fortunetly we gave one to our neighbors, one to the couple from Seattle and Dennis kept one so we only had to clean two but before we did Megan snapped this shot...