4/21/02 | Fish stories from the Mosquito Coast

• 4/14 - 4/16: Media Luna reef
• 4/17 - 4/21: Vivarillo Cays

We bought cheese and eggs in Colón, fruits and vegetables in San Andrés. The one thing we didn't buy very much of was meat, trusting to the sea to provide. Which it did with perfect timing; we hauled in a small blackfin tuna the first afternoon of our passage, enough for dinner that night plus one more meal the next day. We caught a little tunny later that afternoon, but released it since they are not one of the best tasting fish, and we already had some meat on board. As night fell we reeled in the lines.

By the time we set our lines again the next morning, we were on the 70-100 foot deep shelf that borders Nicaragua's Mosquito Coast, just north and east of the Miskito Cays. We had noted an anchorage symbol on the chart by Edinburgh Reef, and thought the relatively calm winds might allow us to spend some time there. As we approached it became clear that the "anchorage" was intended as a temporary measure for larger vessels, as the reef was not extensive or high enough to provide protection from the waves. We changed course to pass between the fringing reef to the east and "Edinburgh Cay" (which was actually a big hunk of shallow reef, not an island) to the west, over a 30-50 foot pass of deep reef and sand.

Zing! I jumped on the starboard side fishing line and began reeling in what turned out to be a nice-sized jack. Just after we'd gotten it aboard and started to let out the line again, zing went the port side line. Britt quickly reeled in a yellowtail snapper (one of the tastiest and hardest-to-spear reef fish). As soon as he had the fish on board, zing went the starboard line again -- a stupid barracuda, which we released. A few minutes later, the starboard line got hit by another fish. I was reeling it in when something hit the port line with tremendous force. Britt started working the pole and I abandoned my fish (it was almost to the boat, I could see it was a barracuda, and if we were lucky it would get off on its own) to slow the boat, because he had something big. It turned out to be a king mackerel, 42", and since we'd never landed one we decided to keep it.

We were almost regretting this decision when we anchored at Media Luna reef and jumped off the boat. The water was thick with fish. Triggerfish, grunts, snappers of all types. One coral head 20 yards off sheltered a couple dozen big gray dog snappers, which lazily swam over and around the maze of interlocking arms of coral, for the most part paying us little attention, occasionally turning to fix us with a fishy eye. We've never seen so many dog snappers in one place. We even saw hogfish for the first time since the Bahamas. Hogfish depend on their color-changing ability for camouflage, which might work on other fish but doesn't work too well with humans, resulting in their absence from most Caribbean reefs, as they are extremely tasty. The presence of many large hogfish testified to the remoteness of this area.

Since we couldn't justify spearing anything while we had a fridgeful of fish, we had to content ourselves with counting coup, sneaking up on a likely target and pretending to shoot an imaginary spear if we got close enough. We also paid more attention to the other reef fish, noticing a few we'd not seen in other parts of the Caribbean such as golden hamlets and mottled red starfish. It would have been an opportunity to examine some coral, sponges, and invertebrates without the distraction of trying to find dinner, but there really wasn't much structure to the reef, not a lot of things to look at.

After a few solitary days at Media Luna, we set sail for the Vivarillo Cays. The wind was cranking from just north of east, and we really hummed along, averaging 7 knots for the 54-mile run. Unlike Media Luna and Edinburgh, the Vivarillos actually have a few small islands among the reefs. One is a bird rookery, one is covered in coconut palms. The third and largest islet has a few buildings on it: ruins of a never-completed shrimp-processing factory, and a rough fishing camp which is the base of a small conch diving operation.

Guillermo "Tiger", conch diver

About an hour after we anchored near the biggest islet, a dugout canoe headed our way. At first we had flashbacks of the San Blas -- oh no, not more Kuna selling molas! But the two fishermen in the canoe wanted only to see if we had any cigarettes, as their supply boat was overdue from the mainland. We don't smoke, so we couldn't oblige, but as it was just about cocktail hour, we invited them up for beers. Guillermo, nicknamed "Tiger", a black Honduran from Guanaja, answered our many questions about their work. (In the Bay Islands, like Guanaja, English is the main language, although as is usual in the Caribbean, it's a sing-songy Creole which is just barely recognizable as English. Spanish is spoken on the mainland.) His silent companion just favored us with a Mona Lisa smile as he drank his beer. "He don't speak English, don't even speak Spanish," Tiger told us. "He's from one of the tribes, Miskito. He speak his own language."

He dives for conch,using SCUBA gear; the Miskito follows him in the boat. He extracts the meat while underwater and leaves the shell behind. He told us he gets 20 to 50 pounds of conch meat a day. The owner of the operation sells conch for 60 lempira a pound; Tiger gets 16 lempira a pound. "In season we dive lobster. I like lobster better, they get 220 lempira and I get 60." We don't know exactly how many lempira are in a dollar (although we better learn soon, as we are heading for lempira-land!) but Tiger told us that a beer at a bar costs about 15 lempira, so we figure that to be around 80 cents or a dollar. He pays the Miskito out of his take.

Lobster season is closed, but that doesn't stop the divers. "Sometimes we get 'em anyway, to eat or to sell. They got patrol boats to check so we smuggle 'em in." Good little environmentalists that we are, we weighed in on the side of the patrol boats, as we think that closures to protect the stock during breeding season are a good thing. But the next day, when the fishermen came back and gave us five medium-sized lobsters -- "We sick of them, we rather eat fish now" -- we failed to put our mouths where our money is, so to speak, and cheerfully accepted. A few days later, we gave them ten gallons of water and a couple more beers, as their supply boat had still not arrived and they had run out of water; they gave us a couple of coconuts and a tour of their camp.

We snorkeled the reef -- needless to say, we found no conch or lobsters, but the fish life was pretty good. We saw one huge cubera snapper, probably 4 feet long (too big to spear!) and a healthy population of gray snappers, dog snappers, white grunts, and other reef fish. Our last day in the Vivarillos we had finally eaten most of our fish, so we treated ourselves to a spearing expedition. We decided that we'd only go for snapper, a sporting challenge as they are sneaky and spooky. It took us two hours, but we eventually got enough for lunch and dinner:  Britt got a squid, a gray snapper, and a small mutton snapper, and just as I was heading back to the dinghy, disgusted with my lousy aim, my spear dull from bouncing off rocks, I happened to spot a gray snapper that wasn't looking in my direction -- gotcha! 

The only sharks we saw were nurse sharks, resting placidly on the bottom as usual, but we know there are, or at least have been, more fearsome sharks in these waters. When we dinked over to the palm-covered islet, we noticed a terrible stench. As we walked around the fringing beach, we discovered that it came from a big pile of discarded shark parts: skin, backbones, and most noticeably heads. Big heads, small heads, hammer heads, pale frowning skulls on the hot sand, bleached by the tropic sun. Later Tiger told us that shark fishermen regular come ashore to process their catch before taking it to the mainland. "They buy meat, teeth, fins. Right now they only buy the fins."

After a few days near the two southern islands, we made the big 2-mile passage to the northern island. The whole area of the Vivarillo Cays always has a cloud of birds overhead, but the northern islet is a particularly impressive bird fortress. Magnificent frigate birds perch in the trees when they're not soaring above, pelicans and gulls squabble along the shore, and blue-faced and red-footed boobies, nesting on the coral rubble that passes for a beach, fluff their wings and squawk at the other birds. A few swifts, much smaller than the other birds, dart back and forth, plucking insects out of the air. One swift flew right into the boat through an open hatch and perched on top of my laptop -- maybe he thought he'd find a few bugs in my computer! (When I tried to shoo him back out, he fluttered away and into the shower in our forward head. I tossed a hand towel on him, then scooped him up and deposited him out on the deck. After another coy look inside, he finally flew off.)

Frigate birds are really something to watch. They have huge wingspans -- seven feet, on the biggest ones -- and they soar so effortlessly. They sense every little nuance of the breeze and adjust instantly, hanging almost motionless for a moment and then dipping a wing to wheel away. We wish we could sail Windom as efficiently and as automatically as these birds sail themselves!