The Eel

Onekahakaha Beach Park, Hilo, Hawaii 1989
Along this stretch of coast there are few beaches and those are small and made of black sand; the remaining coast line consists of dark lava cliffs. This is pahoehoe lave, the kind that flows slowly and when it cools it resembles taffy; this makes the land uneven, with small ridges and depressions which, in certain places, became tide pools when the ocean tide was low.
There are a lot of fish in the ocean surrounding the Hawaiian Islands, many of which are delicious. One fish that was desirable is the rock fish, so named because it likes feeding near the coast, especially cliffs. It stayed deep in the water, below the turbulence of the surf, but you knew it was there. A lot of people knew it was there; fishing is very popular in Hawaii and the locals are experts at it; any day of the week you could find someone fishing or setting traps for crab or the such. This also meant that you could always find what you needed to fish with.
Carrying nothing but drinking water, I would head out to the rocky coastline, looking carefully at the bamboo stands that I passed for a fallen pole that was both long and strong enough. I always found one by the time I reached the ocean. Then, as I made my way to a good fishing spot I would keep my eyes open for hooks and line and sinkers…they were usually together, tangled in the lava where they were abandoned by their original owner. Carefully unwinding the precious line from the crevices and cracks of the black stone, the line sometimes broke, or was too far entangles for extraction, but with patience I was able to find what I needed to tie to that bamboo pole. Now I needed bait.
Opihi is a limpet creature, about the size of a quarter, and at low tide you can see them sticking to the rocks. These oval shaped mollusks extract nutrients from the surf, and so cliffs within the inter tidal zone is perfect for their needs, and that is exactly the sort of place I was at.
The surf of any ocean can be dangerous, but surf along a cliff an be deadly. I am no expert opihi picker, (and yes, those do exist), but I could, with care, find enough for my needs without using ropes or tackle. The trick is to “pick” the limpet off of the rock before it senses you and clamps its oval shell down with a suction force that none can penetrate. I learned from locals that the best tool to use to pry an opihi from its perch is the shell of another opihi; you have to be quick and it does take practice, but I was usually able to gather bait and be on my way with in thirty minutes, once I knew where to look.
I was having a good day…I had already caught a rock fish and I was getting plenty of bites. The fish I had caught had swallowed the hook and so I simply broke the line with the idea of removing it later. I placed it in a tide pool, which lay about fifteen feet behind me, and continued fishing.
I dropped my line into the water, carefully feeling the vibrations through the pole; if I lowered it too much the crabs would grab my opihi within minutes – sometimes seconds – snipping the line as they did so. I also had to account for the surf, and not allow the line to get snagged as it had been when I found it. And, of course, I had to keep an eye on the Pacific Ocean.
Such was my attention taken when I noticed a small dark shape move to my left. It was about the size of a cat, and my mind immediately thought of one of the millions of mongoose that litter the island. I never knew them to leave the coolness of the jungle to come out on lava cliffs, and my reaction was that it was going to still that fish I had just caught. Pulling up my line, I turned to yell at the animal, but there was nothing there. True, the ground was not flat here, but there were no ridges or the like big enough to hide a mongoose. Deciding it had to have been my imagination, I turned back to fishing. But before the bait hit the water I noticed the dark shadow of movement again. Since I was somewhat ready for it my mind caught how the movement was quick and short and also that it was closer.
My body leaped up before I noticed, my focus fully on the movement to my left. I stood completely still, waiting to see movement again and I was not disappointed; what I thought had been the shadow of the creature was in fact the creature itself – it was maybe four inches high and two feet long and undulated like a snake, as it pushed itself across the pahoehoe, But this was no snake, this was a moray eel.
By the time that my brain was willing to except the fact that this ocean creature was clearly on a mission to steal my fish, it had crossed a good eight feet. It saw me an to my amazement moved faster; it was like a side winder, covering much more land in each propulsion than I ever would have thought possible. Not thinking, except that I wanted to eat my fish, I ran to intercept the would be thief, which seemed to only give the thing, still glistening unnaturally with seawater, the motivation to move even more quickly. It not only made it to the tide pool before me, it managed to grab my fish and snap the line I had tied to a rock, then retrace its steps exactly, allowing itself to drop off of the cliff and back into its normal environment. I had lost my fish and going back to where I had caught it, I realized I had lost my pole.