
Living in Paradise offers many advantages. One of which is amazing fishing. Now I know that may not sound like fun to a lot people, and I'll be the first to admit it's not something I spend my days longing to do; however, on the occasion when I accompany my husband, I always end up having fun and usually it turns out to be a pretty great day.
Sunday was no exception. We went fishing with another couple, our friends Joe and Sacha Lynch. The four of us headed off to the Marine Core Base and fished off their pier. Joe and Garret had gone fishing there the day before, and Garret caught a fish. Needless to say, they were anxious and excited to return,
It started off slow and, much to my dismay, very hot. There were fish jumping all around us, some even breaking the surface, but no bites. Joe caught a couple of crabs (literally) in a net, one of them was huge! It was so icky, and I was a little scared of getting to close to take the picture.

Eventually we decided to check out another spot behind the airfield, but instead of fishing there, we ended up exploring. It was the coolest place! There was white coral against black lava rocks that lined the beach and the edge of the water which created all these pools of miscellaneous sea life to see. We even found a sea slug, it was pretty icky too. I'm not sure which was worse, it or the crab from earlier. Still, it was a blast!
We left there and went back to the pier. This time we found a spot at the very end. Thankfully some clouds had rolled in, and a nice breeze started. It was so beautiful, and just the break we needed from the intense humidity filled heat. I got the most awesome picture of the sun breaking through the clouds and reflecting off the ocean against a mountain. You see that kind of thing a lot around here, and it never gets old.

Then, the most exciting part of our day occurred. Garret got a big bite on his pole. He had it wedged in a buffer bar off the pier while he went down to talk to a friend of his from work. I was the closest to the pole, but in order to get to it, you have to step off the pier and over the water to reach the buffer bar. I'll admit I sort of panicked when I saw his pole snap down, and I just froze. First all I didn't want to fall off the pier; second of all I didn't want to drop his pole; third I didn't want to be responsible for losing his bite. Thankfully Joe wasn't far away, and he was successfully able to retrieve it. He offered it to Garret to reel in, but Joe hadn't had much luck fishing in the last two days so Garret gave him the green light to bring it in himself. Joe fought long and hard, but eventually it got away. Everyone was pretty bummed, but they were also more determined than ever to bring something in.
Half an hour later, they got their wish. This time it was biting on Joe's hook. Again he fought like a champ, but this time, he got it to the surface. We were all stunned to see it was a stingray! It was huge! It had to have been at least 3 and a 1/2 to 4 feet across. The only problem was that once they got it too the surface, there was really no way to bring it up out of the water. Keep in mind we were on a pier, and the water was like 15 feet down from us. The fishing line supported up to 50 pounds, but when they tried to lift it from the surface, it snapped the line, and went back into the depths of the ocean.

Even though they didn't get to bring the fish home (although, I'm not really sure what we would've done with it if they had) it was still the most awesome experience! Catching a fish that big, let alone a stingray is pretty uncommon where we were at, which made it all the more special.
Garret and Joe are going deep sea fishing on Jarnuary 3rd and they are both super exicted. There they'll have the chance to catch things like Mahi Mahi, Ono, 'Ahi (yellow fin tuna), and many other huge amazing fish! Gotta love living in Hawaii.
Until next time . . . . . .