Throwback Sunday: Fun With Fish

Tony Petrella and me with our starfish harvest.

Editr Snorkel and a prize.

Editr's barracuda ...

... Barracuda as a weapon: SMACK!

Hey, Grandpa, what's for supper? How 'bout tuna?

This beauty weighed 9 pounds.

These photos are from a 1979 trip some friends and I took in the Bahamas aboard a 43-foot sailboat (the Northwind). The trip, on which we served as crew (I am an Annapolis Sailing School grad, for your info) was a photo expedition, one that would show the boat in its best light so it could be rented out during the season.

This was in February (and when we left Roanoke, it was hit by a huge ice story; poor babies) and the weather was perfect sailing out of Miami toward Bimini, Nassau and Great Harbor (among other places).

Other than drinking a lot of beer (Polar, a nondescript Bahamian brand mostly) and ogling my friend Tony Petrella's beautiful red-headed wife Kate (whom I'm still in love with today) there wasn't a lot to do but sail the boat and catch fish with whatever lures we could find (my cigarette lighter caught a barracuda). Tony caught a whole passel of squid using his

Sailing school grad at the wheel

flyrod and some hand-tied trout lures. We threw them into a bucket of water whereupon they proceeded to gas each other to death. We didn't eat them. Ewwwwww.

We did, however, eat barraccuda, which were quite marvelous after being marinated in lime juice for about 20 minutes, and the tuna, sea bass, sea trout and the like kept us fat and happy. ("Fat," in those days, had a different connotation than it has today.)