st and September. I have seen
acres of flying-fish in the air at once, and great swarms of yellowtail,
basking on the surface. The color of the water is indigo blue, clear as
crystal. Always a fascinating thing for me was to watch the water for
new and different fish, strange marine creatures, life of some kind. And
the watching was always rewarded. I have been close to schools of
devilish blackfish, and I have watched great whales play all around me.
What a spectacle to see a whale roll and dip his enormous body and bend
and sound, lifting the huge, glistening flukes of his tail, wide as a
house! I hate sharks and have caught many, both little and big. When you
are watching for swordfish it is no fun to have a big shark break for
your bait, throw the water, get your hook, and lift you from your seat.
It happened often. But sometimes when I was sure it was a shark it was
really a swordfish! I used to love to watch the sunfish leap, they are
so round and glistening and awkward. I could tell one two miles away.
The blue shark leaps often and he always turns clear over. You cannot
mistake it. Nor can you mistake a swordfish when he breaks, even though
you only see the splash. He makes two great sheets of water rise and
fall. Probably all these fish leap to shake off the remoras. A remora is
a parasite, a queer little fish, pale in color, because he probably
lives inside the gills of the fish he preys upon, with the suckers on
top of his head, arranged in a shield, ribbed like a washboard. This
little fish is as mysterious as any creature of the sea. He is as swift
as lightning. He can run over the body of a swordfish so quickly you
can scarcely follow his movement, and at all times he is fast to the
swordfish, holding with that flat sucker head. Mr. Holder wrote years
ago that the remora sticks to a fish just to be carried along, as a
means of travel, but I do not incline to this belief. We found many
remoras inside the gills of swordfish, and their presence there was
evidence of their blood-sucking tendencies. I used to search every
swordfish for these remoras, and I would keep them in a bucket till
we got to our anchorage. A school of tame rock-bass there, and tame
yellowtail, and a few great sea-bass were always waiting for us--for our
discarded bait or fish of some kind. But when I threw in a live remora,
how these hungry fish did dart away! Life in the ocean is strange,
complex, ferocious, and wonderful.

Al Shade kee