WHERE'S THE FISH??

Today a fish arrived, surprisingly not a common event in Montserrat. It was a beautiful huge blue fin tuna caught by a friend who fishes when he can. Montserrat lies in deep blue waters and the sea is rough for much of the year. Around springtime, when the island experiences dry season and the land turns sere and dusty, the seas calm themselves becoming at times almost mirror flat. These are very good fishing days.

Here fishermen sell what we laughingly call aquarium fish, small beautiful reef fish not larger than half a foot. I’m not sure what one would do with these beauties, if they were still alive, but put them in a tank and watch the show. Another common sight is a pickup truck loaded with pipefish. These are twelve inch thin pipes, as unappealing as they are skinny. There is probably a good local dish made from them, but we’ve yet to have any.

A year or so ago there was an Australian fellow and his wife on the island. They had brought their recently bought boat from Florida with a charter fishing business in mind. The charter business went well and they sold extra game fish to folks around the island like us. We were thrilled to be getting tunas , large red snappers and dolphin fish every week. Then there came a series of dangerous mishaps with the boat and not long after getting married here, the couple left.

When we envisioned life in the Caribbean we remembered all our months in Trinidad & Tobago. In Tobago we walked from Store Bay down to the fishing shacks at Pigeon Point at about 4:00 in the afternoon. The fishermen were arriving in their large, but glorified row boats, with the catch of the day. It was a wonderful social gathering of folks on the beach – housewives, restauranteurs and us – two island visitors with a kitchen and a yen for fish.

Now that we have settled in our home in Montserrat, we have to accept a very different Caribbean experience. Yes, there are fish out there, but no one is interested in making a business of catching them. Yes, there are lots of lobsters out there, but no one is interested in making a business of catching them. We’ve even in the past resorted to canned tuna fish, truly a travesty when fish are so plentiful in the waters nearby. Maybe we'll get our own boat and catch our own fish!

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