A True Fish Story -- Almost
Dear Rudy,
I was at my favorite taverna on the southwest tip of Crete enjoying
some tsikoudia (local moonshine) on a balmy August night. The
village, Loutro, consists of a row of whitewashed buildings, which
are restaurants, small hotels, and a couple of bars with the
Mediterranean in front and the mountains behind. It has a beautiful
horseshoe harbor that looks southward towards Egypt and Libya. There
are no roads going to it, you must get there by boat from the nearby
town of Sfakia.
We had just finished another giant meal of fresh garden salad, fresh
grouper, calamari, stuffed grape leaves, and oven-roasted lamb with
potatoes. As if that wasn't enough, the local dessert was brought out
afterwards: homemade cheese and honey. The idea is to dip a chunk of
cheese in the honey and then eat it. After getting past the thought
of it being a strange combination, it actually tastes quite good! Of
course, the usual platter of chilled fresh fruit came out afterwards.
It was already evening, about 9:30 PM, when my friend Mike from the
States came with his fishing boat so we could go out to bring in the
"paragadi" (a fishing line with 200 hooks on it) that we had laid out
a few hours earlier. This requires about 1 to 1 1/2 hours of work
with usually very little to show for it. We were doing it more for
sport than anything, so for us, it was worth it. Whenever we got a
good catch, we noticed the local fishermen getting a little upset
with us. It didn't look good that the two Americans were catching as
much fish as the locals. There was plenty of jesting about that both
ways, along with the typical fishermen's tales.
So off we went into the night looking for the styrofoam buoys we had
left for markers. We found the buoy and started to pull the line in.
Our first catch was a moray eel. It reared its head back as it came
out of the water. These eels are deadly if they bite you, so we let
him go. Next was a stingray with a two-foot wingspan. Stingrays are
good eating, but they take a lot of time to prepare, and you only eat
a small part of the wing.
As we pulled the line in, we found more eels and stingrays. As I
later found out, this part of the coast was infested with these fish.
The reason: The locals use dynamite in these waters to kill the fish
so they can scoop them out of the water. The dynamite kills
everything except eels and rays. After about an hour of hard work, we
wound up with only two or three kilos of fish and one octopus.
But the REAL payoff - the best part of the boat ride -- was yet to
come. As we headed back to the village, Mike steered so I got to lay
back and watch the stars. We were away from any lights so the sky was
a velvety pitch black. It dawned on me that this was one of the main
reasons I keep coming back to this village. The stars are splattered
across the sky like diamonds. You can actually see the Milky Way!
Being in such a remote place and seeing more of the universe than I
could ever dream of made me feel small and insignificant. This
humbling feeling is hard to describe, and I only feel it to this
degree when I see the Cretan sky at night in this village. Truly a
sight to behold!
When we pulled up to the dock, there were a couple of local fishermen
waiting to see what we had caught. Of course, we had to make up a
fish tale since we had so little to show for our efforts. We told
them we caught a 100-kilo tuna that was so big, we couldn't even pull
into the boat. We said that we tied it to the side, took it to the
neighboring town and sold it to the fish market. No one believed us
because tuna is rare in these waters, but it was great for a laugh.
After downing a few more tsikoudias with everyone to celebrate
catching the tuna, we turned in. Morning comes early in this magical
little village -- especially when you have to throw in the nets to go
fishing!
George
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