fishing Mayan style

Many years ago, when the kids were still young, Husband and I took a week long vacation to Cozumel.  This was before it became as popular as it is today with all the incumbent American influences.  Back then Cancun was the destination of choice and the only people who went to Cozumel were divers and cruise ships.  We had been to Cancun the previous year and though we had fun, we might just as well have gone to Florida it was so Americanized.

In Cozumel we stayed at the last hotel toward the west end of the island from the little town of San Miguel.  It had a small stretch of beach out front, white sand, palm trees and hammocks.  Since we were going to be there a whole week we decided to take in some of the tours they offered like the 8 hour bus ride to the Mayan ruins of Chichen Itza.  They had a guy at the hotel in the lobby whose job it was to sign people up.  

Now the thing about Husband is that he is a friendly guy.  He can talk to total strangers as if they were his best friend and often does.  On a later vacation with friends, the four of us would be walking around the little town only to look up and find that Husband was blocks behind us engaged in conversation with someone who spoke English about as well as he spoke Spanish, which is to say, not at all.  They’d be yukking it up like best buds.  I admire that about him.  Before we met I was painfully shy (what you say...you shy?  Yes, yes, actually I was) and it was from him that I learned how to talk to people.  (Probably something better left unlearned as I tend to be honest to the point of bluntness.) 

So here we are in the hotel lobby and Husband is chatting up the tour guy and before I know it, a fishing trip is arranged at no cost to us. This young man’s father, he tells us, has a boat and he will arrange for him (his father) to take us fishing.  His father worked at one of the hotels closer to town in the restaurant there and on his day off, we were to meet him (the father) at the little pier at 8 AM there at the hotel where he worked.  

On the appointed day, Husband and I arrive at the appointed time and meet this man who was going to take us fishing out in the ocean.  He had a helper with him and although the tour guy spoke excellent English, neither of these small Mayan men did and our high school Spanish was nearly nonexistent.  We didn’t talk much but we all did lots of smiling and he started up the small outboard motor and off we went.

This was not a big cruiser of a boat.  It was old and beat up, had a sail and the aforementioned small outboard motor but there was plenty of room for the four of us.  Once past the breakers, he cut the motor off by pulling out the gas line and hoisted the sail until we got far enough out.  They handed us these two old beat up fishing poles with spark plugs tied on the ends of the lines for weights, baited the hooks for us and tossed them out.  While we were using the fishing poles, he and his helper were using just fishing line also with spark plugs tied on the end for weights.  They would hold that line in their hands and then start hauling it in, hand over hand, pulling out fish almost as fast as they could get their hooks baited and thrown back in.  

We had been at an ‘in ocean’ aquarium earlier in the week that was full of tropical fish.  You could snorkel among them and the fish were protected.  We swam among angel fish, butterfly fish, surgeon fish, parrot fish, all those lovelies that live in those tropical waters.  Now, here we were, fishing those same fish.  Those protected beauties we had swam among earlier as well as grouper were now becoming fillets or bait the instant they hit the deck.  I was shocked.  It never occurred to me that the fish we would be catching would be those beautiful creatures.  

Husband caught three or four.  I caught only one, a beautiful parrot fish, the biggest catch of the day between the two of us.  After a while (time has no meaning in Mexico and you are best served not worrying about it), he hoisted sail again and we headed for a little sand bar off the far western end of the island, sticking the gas line into the motor again to start it up when needed to get in close.  

There, on this little sand bar while we drank hot cokes, one of the men made ceviche and the other prepared coals and grilled the freshly caught and filleted fish.  And we all ate.  It was the best fish I have ever eaten in my life.  That fish, that place, those people...it was paradise.  They brought us back, we smiled and laughed and tried to convey our thanks, our wonderment, our happiness.  Husband pressed some money into their hands, a tip, not expected nor required, but accepted.  We walked back down the beach to our hotel and we never saw them again.

That week, I fell in love with the Mayan people.  Their friendliness, their generosity, the aura of their lives drew us back many times.  Always we had a wonderful time, but nothing ever matched that day a total stranger took us fishing simply because his son asked him to.