When Angelfish Attack! (Cruising’s Wild Side) By Rebecca Burg
“EEEEEE!” I shrieked as a prickly, clammy something grabbed my hand.
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ngel and I were stretching our stiff legs in the Gulf after hiding from Hurricane Ivan in a mangrove noman’s land. Sharing in the unwanted adventure, fellow single-hander Captain Bill and Defiant were sailing nearby. Absently jerking Angel’s tiller, I glanced down my arm and yelped again. Casually perched on my knuckles, the white seabird flapped its wings and silently took off. Blinking dumbly, I stared at my hand. “Birds act really strange after serious storms,” Captain Bill radioed after I had to explain why I was shrieking like a little girl. “They get confused or something. Hell, I had one land on the bow of my fishing boat once and it wouldn’t budge. The sucker really scared the lady on my charter that day.” Alfred Hitchcock would’ve liked that one, I thought. Seabirds aren’t the only non-human company that cruisers encounter while out and about. One common visitor is the porpoise, a fascinating presence usually found cavorting around one’s bow wave. It’s just a bit disconcerting when an overly enthusiastic dolphin gets crowded by his buddies and ends up clunking into the boat’s hull. There’s no harm done, but people cringe when it happens. Sailors also encounter the odd fish jumping onboard, small crabs climbing up ropes or taking refuge in the dinghy and the spooky bumps-onthe-hull-at-night routine. Even land animals get into the act. Captain Bill once found a hitchhiking marina rat in his dinghy. The damp rodent was leisurely grooming itself and wasn’t pleased about being forced to walk the plank and swim to shore. Luckily, Bill found the potential stowaway before he sailed off into the wild blue yonder. I’m just glad that it wasn’t my dinghy. Visitations from our natural world tend to be most unexpected and startling at times. It wasn’t too long ago when Angel was subject to a new surprise. “Defiant!” I said, accusatively. “Bill, did you—?” I paused and squinted at Defiant in the pale, early morning sunlight. Close by, the sailboat was innocently bobbing at her anchors. Known for enjoying a good practical joke, my cruising buddy was nowhere to be seen. Befuddled, I stared at Angel’s once-white deck. Purple and black splatters were everywhere from cockpit to bow. It looked as if Angel had been target practice for an amateur paintball tournament. I
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gingerly poked at the dark substance. It was dry. On Angel’s bow, alongside a cleat, lay the culprit. I made a face. Tentacles curled, a large squid lay in a puddle of its own ink. Who knew that squid could jump? In between cruises, when the boat gets a chance to rest in an area long enough, critters do become acclimated to one’s presence. “Stick your finger in the water,” I said. Captain Bill, knowing that I was up to no good, folded his arms. “I ain’t sticking my finger in there!” I wiggled my hand. “Look, I’m doing it.” In a flash, a fat ballyhoo rushed up and chomped my finger. It was like being grabbed by a stiff piece of 400-grit sandpaper and though startling at first, it didn’t hurt. Ballyhoo are toothless, grassgrazing baitfish. A small school of them clustered behind the boat. Bill started laughing. “How did you—?” He threw out his arms. “Oh, I know!” A serious angler, Bill would frequently use bits of bread to chum up panfish. The ballyhoo, which tended to hang out near the generous shade of Defiant’s hull, apparently enjoyed this free snack. I was able to tease the fish into thinking that my finger was a piece of bread. Soon, Capt. Bill was crouched in the dinghy and chuckling like a schoolboy as ballyhoo took turns nibbling on his finger. Speaking of fish, most sailors can tell you about the one that jumped into the dinghy while motoring or rowing at night. At sea, flying fish seem to be drawn to lights and will plunk onto a traveling sailboat’s deck whether you want them to or not. There is such a thing as a free lunch, and some cruisers will cook and eat these fresh “gifts.” A sailing buddy once found a dried seahorse on his boat’s deck and suspected that a bird, unable to eat it, had dropped it there. At least it wasn’t as messy as a squid. On the subject of mollusks, one sailboat owner got a little more than he’d bargained for after taking his daysailer out of the water. While the boat rested on the trailer, something slender started to ooze from the centerboard slot. Looking at first like dripping sea goo, the mystery substance became thicker and longer. Like something from a science-fiction flick, it began to move under its own power. The wide-eyed boat owner wasn’t quite sure what to think or, frankly, what to do. After a short time, the elongated purple blob suddenly plopped onto the ground and crawled back into the water. The sailboat had just given birth to an octopus. A sailboat’s orifices are inviting rest stops to some critters, until they become stuck. The eel that firmly wedged See ANGELFISH continued on page 75 www.southwindsmagazine.com