1981 (2) - Candide

Bees Waxing Eloquent.
I found a photo of an island bus and altered it in Photoshop.

To go to the beginning of this book, Tropic Moon: Memories, click HERE.

We were anchored near several French boats in the Iles des Saintes.  One afternoon, after William and Katherine had left, some people from the yacht, Candide, came by in their dinghy with fish they'd just caught.  Despite my limited French, and their limited English, we understood we were welcome to some of the fish, as they had extra.  One of the men reached into his bucket and handed a fish up to me, where I was standing on deck.  I was a little squeamish about taking it, but thought - what the hell, it's just a fish.  I hadn't realized it was still alive….  When I took the fish in my hand and it began to wriggle, I let out a yelp and tossed it into the air.  The man leaned backwards and made a really neat catch but, in doing so, he fell out of the dinghy!  I was horribly embarrassed and tried to apologize, while their toddler set up quite a wail.  Ed handed down our bucket.  They placed a couple fish in it, and passed it back to us. 

Ed had the messy job of gutting and scaling the fish.  While the fish were tasty, we wondered if it had been worth all the trouble.  (We lived on a boat for fourteen years, and didn’t do any fishing ourselves….)  The next day I baked banana bread, and made an extra loaf to take over to Candide.  I learned they were on their way to Florida, via the Bahamas.

English Harbor, Antigua.  Internet Photo

On our way north, we saw the red-hulled Candide again in English Harbour, Antigua, when the crew motored past Tropic Moon in their dinghy.  We recognized each other, smiled and waved.  I was rather surprised when they showed up later that day with more fresh fish!  We had an invitation for dinner, so I explained we couldn't use the fish that night.  (There was no refrigeration or icebox on Tropic Moon.)  They asked if we had friends who might want them.  It was obvious these people had speared extra fish to bring over to us, so we hated to say no.  We decided to bring the fish along to our friends, who were house sitting, and had the use of a refrigerator.  Ed worked an hour cleaning the three fish, which he carried over in a bucket of seawater. 

We presented this offering to our hosts.

David said, "We hate fish."

Jill added, "But the cat will love them!" 

We hoped, after all Ed's work, that the cat enjoyed his meal.