The time: past noon.
The place: off Wreck Hill in the boat, anchored between a narrow passage of rocks.
The tide: very low.
We left Jew’s Bay shortly after eight while the clouds were still full of sleep and the reflecting a glorious glow over the Little Sound. The sea was like glass as we spend under Somerset Bridge, out through Ely’s Harbour to the southwest along the shore where we trolled for half an hour.
The day was perfect, although very hot. After two hours of fishing we caught enough for supper.
We came back from the channel to Wreck Hill there the space between this narrow cut in the rocks pulls a strong draft, creating out sought-after breeze. On the horizon the sky was strung with low clouds; close to the sea they were pink. The effect was quite cooling to the eye.
Slipping over the side of the boat we sank below the surface and immediately our sense readjusted to a new world. Spread before us was a grassy bottom where a multitude of newborn fish fed and played, hiding at times within the shelter of an abandoned shell. Then the grass thinned out, leaving us surrounded by an underwater desert. Here and there soft, round mounds of sand lifted up from the sea bed, like small tents.
When we reached the rocks we carefully looked into the many caves. It was high noon, only the smaller fish were swimming in and out of the rocky ledges, while in the cool of a dark cave we found a huge, green parrotfish taking its siesta.
We could spend hours thus; sometimes floating on the surface like resting turtles, sometimes swimming down to skim along the bottom, watching the fish race before us like sailboats before an on-coming squall. Or diving down the face of the coral ledge between thre sea-fans, looking for fish and enjoying the changing degrees of cool water which flow from the deeper caves.
What better way to spend a hot, summer day.
