The wind was really starting to pick up strength as I loaded the jeep for today's hunt. I decided to hunt Cambridge Beaches because it was the lee shore and I hoped to get some shelter from the wind and rain on this hunt. I got in the water an hour before low tide and it was pretty quiet for the first hour until I got a strong hit about waist deep. Two scoops later I have a penny in the bottom of the scoop but out of habit I double checked the hole and I still have a target so I scoop some more and soon I have another penny staring back at me from the bottom of the scoop and this one is a 1937 Wheatie.
Not gold or silver but I like it just the same, pop the wheatie in my loot pocket and mosey a long for a bit until I get a broken signal in waist deep water and I start digging. I get down 3 big scoops and the signal is really strong now and kind of ferrous so I am hoping that I am digging another 17th century cannonball like the ones I have dug out of this area before. The next scoop I feel the tip of scoop hit something hard but nothing comes up so I push in again and my tip bumps off of something hard again but still nothing in the scoop so I stick my foot down into the rabbit hole about knee deep and start to fan vigorously with my foot to clear out the sand and that's when it happened.
Something Grabbed My Diveboot And Wouldn't Let Go!
I let out a roar and hauled hard but my foot was still stuck so I gave a hard kick and my foot came free but as I tried to get my foot out I feel something coil up my calf and I just lost it. I leapt back with all the adrenalin induced strength I had and raised my scoop over my head to defend myself and thats when I saw the thick body of 4 foot long Spotted Eel bolt out of the hole and dart off for deep water in a cloud of sand.
My heart was racing and the blood was pounding in my ears and I turned every which way just in case the eel came back, which fortunately it did not do as it was probably more spooked than I was. My calf was slimey from where the eel had tried to push past it in its' efforts to escape and there is a nice neat hole in the top of my diveboot but I was lucky and it did me no harm other than almost give me a heart attack.
The wind and rain were starting to pick up by now and I realized that I really wasn't interested in hunting anymore today so I put the CZ-21 over my shoulder and headed back to the jeep. It occurred to me that I had just had the bad luck to dig into the Spotted Eel hole which just happened to be beside a big old ship spike.(of course I got the target, I wasn't giving up after that much effort) I've run into spotted eels in this bay before but never so up close and personal, they burrow into the sand tail first and ambush fish from the cover of the sand. I guess I was digging faster than the eel so it couldn't get away, I hope I didn't hurt it as they are getting rare around these parts. No, I didn't get a pic but even if I had my camera with me, taking a pic was the last thing on my mind at the time and posing for a picture was probably the last thing on the eel's mind.
Since I was in Somerset I stopped by the liquor merchant and picked up a bottle of 23 year old rum to calm my nerves; they were out of the 25 year old rum but I find I like the 23 year old rum more and it is one third the price so that tidbit of information was my best find of the day.
I just finished locking down the hurricane shutters because we have a hurricane force winds hitting us tonight and I'll need to pick up my Princess in town because the ferries will probably be out of action because of the weather.
Not gold or silver but I like it just the same, pop the wheatie in my loot pocket and mosey a long for a bit until I get a broken signal in waist deep water and I start digging. I get down 3 big scoops and the signal is really strong now and kind of ferrous so I am hoping that I am digging another 17th century cannonball like the ones I have dug out of this area before. The next scoop I feel the tip of scoop hit something hard but nothing comes up so I push in again and my tip bumps off of something hard again but still nothing in the scoop so I stick my foot down into the rabbit hole about knee deep and start to fan vigorously with my foot to clear out the sand and that's when it happened.Something Grabbed My Diveboot And Wouldn't Let Go!
I let out a roar and hauled hard but my foot was still stuck so I gave a hard kick and my foot came free but as I tried to get my foot out I feel something coil up my calf and I just lost it. I leapt back with all the adrenalin induced strength I had and raised my scoop over my head to defend myself and thats when I saw the thick body of 4 foot long Spotted Eel bolt out of the hole and dart off for deep water in a cloud of sand.My heart was racing and the blood was pounding in my ears and I turned every which way just in case the eel came back, which fortunately it did not do as it was probably more spooked than I was. My calf was slimey from where the eel had tried to push past it in its' efforts to escape and there is a nice neat hole in the top of my diveboot but I was lucky and it did me no harm other than almost give me a heart attack.
The wind and rain were starting to pick up by now and I realized that I really wasn't interested in hunting anymore today so I put the CZ-21 over my shoulder and headed back to the jeep. It occurred to me that I had just had the bad luck to dig into the Spotted Eel hole which just happened to be beside a big old ship spike.(of course I got the target, I wasn't giving up after that much effort) I've run into spotted eels in this bay before but never so up close and personal, they burrow into the sand tail first and ambush fish from the cover of the sand. I guess I was digging faster than the eel so it couldn't get away, I hope I didn't hurt it as they are getting rare around these parts. No, I didn't get a pic but even if I had my camera with me, taking a pic was the last thing on my mind at the time and posing for a picture was probably the last thing on the eel's mind.
Since I was in Somerset I stopped by the liquor merchant and picked up a bottle of 23 year old rum to calm my nerves; they were out of the 25 year old rum but I find I like the 23 year old rum more and it is one third the price so that tidbit of information was my best find of the day.
I just finished locking down the hurricane shutters because we have a hurricane force winds hitting us tonight and I'll need to pick up my Princess in town because the ferries will probably be out of action because of the weather.
I guess shark attack is cheaper than a divorce.
The rum is Ron Zacapa and I highly recommend it, excellent value for the discriminating pirate.
