Dark. Ocean. Scared. TJ.

I like the ocean. I like to swim. I like to fish. But when my buddy Oswaldo asked me to go snorkeling and spearfishing with him at night... I was pretty anxious. I do not like to be in water if I can't see what is around me- and the extent of our light in the pitch black ocean was to be the handheld flashlights that he had covered in bicycle tubing. "Dominicans do it all the time", he says to me in Spanish. Maybe, I thought, but Dominicans also lean ladders on power lines.

We went out at 10pm, nearly got shot by the beach patrol before convincing them we weren't there to launch a boat to Puerto Rico, and then got into the water. About ten feet from the shore and I wasn't real sure where the shore even was. It was terrifying, exciting, and absolutely wonderful.

Right off the bat, we were surrounded by small little sparks in the water- tiny underwater lighting bugs, "pulgas", Oswaldo called them. It was calm, warm, and not nearly as scary as I had imagined once we got out into the reefs. We followed the underwater structure, shining our flashlights into the inky darkness to illuminate coral, sea fans, eels, pufferfish, jellyfish, small reef fish, spiny lobsters, and so much more.

We ended up shooting a reef fish whose name in spanish I can't pronounce, a spiny lobster, and (my favorite) two decent size reef squid. Oswaldo's mom made a sopa de mariscos (mixed seafood soup) the next day.

All in all - amazing experience. Not only to be in the water at night, scared I would be eaten at any moment by some overeager shark or barracuda, but also to be the predator, swimming and diving with a speargun like my favorite GI Joe figure from 1985. I'm hooked.


Watch out fishies - TJ's not just throwing lines and hooks anymore...