Sleeping with a Fish

Just the other day in my blog I talked about the dilemma of sleeping with the hatch of my room open to help cool me off in the unbearably hot humid weather. Well I now have one more reason to be a bit nervous about leaving the hatch open. For the past week Eli makes the rounds in the morning to count the squid and flying fish that wash up on our decks. It seems that every day there is anywhere from one to three pour fish souls who lost their life somewhere on our deck. It seems that they just fly up and sometimes that includes onto the boat. Just an hour ago, Alyssa was sitting at the helm and a fish flew up and hit her in the arm before flopping around in the cockpit. Dailin scooped it up right away to toss him back into the sea… but do they ever stink like fish.

I know what you may be thinking, of course it smells like fish. Yes, but flying fish reeeealy smell like fish, a very strong odor that wafts throughout the boat. Last week Kirsten was trying to figure out why it stunk so bad in the washroom. It wasn’t until later that day as I was walking around the boat that I noticed a flying fish was caught under the edge of the ceiling vent from the bathroom.

As I lay there in bed yesterday evening I was nervous about getting wet if I left the hatch open. Little did I know that water was not the concern of the night. Around 3 am when Kirsten left to check on one of the kids on watch. A splash came through the window… or so I thought. I quickly jumped up and closed the hatch to keep more moisture from coming in. That’s when I hear a noise coming from where Kirsten was sleeping. I reached over to see what she was doing to make this noise only to discover in my have dazed slumber that she was not there. I guess she had gone to check on one of the kids who were on watch. What I heard however was a flopping, flapping sound right next to me. I turned on my watch light to see what was going on and discovered a flying fish had flown through the hatch and into my bed. And was it ever smelling like fish.

I hollered for Kirsten who I could tell was in the Galley with a light on to bring me a cup to scoop up the fish with. I did not want to have to smell like fish for the rest of the night even if my sheets were going to smell fishy. She came down to our berth with a cup and flashlight in hand to stare at me in horror as she noticed what was on her side of the bed.

She scooped the fish into the cup and as I was opening the hatch the fish started flopping around and startled the living daylights out of Kirsten who promptly dropped the cup and fish back down next to me. With the hatch finally open, I scooped the fish back up and tossed it as far as I could out the hatch. I did not want it flopping on the deck and back in through the hatch. Then I thought better and just to be safe decided to spend the next few hours in a stuffy room with a closed hatch and no fish inside. I was already nauseous from smelling the fish in my bed which now felt like Seattle’s Pike Place Fish Market, complete with fish flying through the air.

11:55 pm PDT, Lat: 02° 26.513′ N, Long: 128° 18.046′ W, Course 221° T, Speed: 7.4 K, Wind: S 15 K, Swell: S 4′, Cloud Cover: 40%, Barometer: 1013 hPa, Temp: 26°C