Mullet Shower

While most of my outdoor meditation this trip is done over WL ms, I've done enough yoga and think-sitting on the little dock to see on multiple occasions, single silver fish jumping straight out of the bay and landing with a belly flop. Long lean fish, about 12" in length, 3-5" wide, and irridescent in the sun. I wonder if they are the same fish of that glorious ferris wheel I saw here last year. This year I've seen only solos. Jumping as often as they do, I would have expected a more graceful arc, ending with a nose-first slip back into the water. But no---this is a sudden vertical burst from the water, a mometary flail in mid-air, ending in a clumsy side-slap drop into the bay. Is it sport or do they fear for their lives? And what kind of fish are they?

My questions might have remained unanswered in this isolated "fish camp." I see only one fisherman pass by in the mornings and return in the evenings in a small motorboat,standing upright on the bow in serious fishing attire. Classic fishing hat with sun and rain flaps, sometimes draped in a net (?). I see him several docks away after his evening return, throwing nets.

Until Mr. ___ _____came to build a ladder on the side of this dock today. Born and raised here, a character of considerable quirk---my favorite kind. The fish are mullet, he said. They jump to escape the dolphins that come in from the ocean to play, and with whom he is on a first name basis. The dolphins won't hurt them, but the mullet don't know it. If you're lucky, you'll see a "mullet shower." (That explains last year's ferris wheel.) The dolphins are responsible, he said.

He said a lot more, soaking wet. "Who else has a job where he can swim while he works?"

Wish I could recount entire conversation, but won't, this being a public blog. As he was leaving he indicated the dead live oak, "That tree needs to be cut. Tell Ms._______I'll cut it for her." He confirmed my guess that the bees are honeybees. "Well then, we'll just cut the top and leave this part for em. Look a there. You don't see that very often. They're endangered, you know."

I said it would make the animal advocates of the world happy, to leave the tree.

"And me too," he said.

dkm