The Remora Fish

[oneighty]

The fish has a suction device located on top of his head end. He sucks onto larger sea creatures for a free ride and missed food particles from the feeding of his host.

A large Remora fish is attracted to the big fat belly of my swim buddy, a chief petty officer and master diver. We are coming up slowly from a fairly deep dive, decompressing. The chief whips out his trusty rusty diving knife to ward of the intruder. In the process the chief rips a gash in his hand. The flowing blood looks green/black due to our depth.

The chief is having a bad day. On our first dive of the day a large horny loggerhead turtle attempted to mount him. On the second dive a hammerhead shark amused us for a few minutes. Now on this dive he is dueling with the harmless Remora. I am thinking with all his blood in the water he will soon be dueling a shark. I am glad that does not happen,

Some years later in the Aztec Blue water off Charleston, South Carolina a Remora fish demonstrates an interest in my swim buddy, our diving officer. The diving officer becomes quite up set by the intentions of his fishy admirer. I flash my blue Voit Viking swim fins in the grinning face of the Remora and his attention is redirected to the fins. He follows me and my fins all the way to the nine man rubber raft we are working from. The expression of the Remora's face is a happy one, looks like he is grinning all the time.

Many years later I am fishing off a shrimp trawler anchored up in twenty fathoms of water off the Georgia coast. I hook into a good size fish and work him slowly to the boat. He is a large Remora. His grin is colored red and broken by my wicked treble hook. I try to remove the hook without further damage. I am not successful but I release him back to the water. He swims a crooked path with his broken smile and leaves a trail of blood as he slowly swims away.

I am thinking; "Why did you do that Eddie?"

From 'Voyages of the Vicky Mary.'

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[Shipwack]

1. Are you experimenting with different techniques?

This passage seems different somehow from your usual writing. Can't quite put my finger on it... Maybe the sentence structure is more direct?

[oneighty]

2. No Shipwack

or yes! I suppose I play with words and ideas. I try to write something every day. Sometimes I try to steal from the 'Gullah dialect' or mimic my Tennessee relatives from long ago. My 'style' is all over the place as it is with an amateur.

I am not a serious writer except for 'Kazuko' which I have been formulating since 1955 and perhaps will never finish.

Shipwack, an interesting handle. I have a friend called 'Shipwreck.' He earned that name when the rowboat he was riding sank in Lake Erie.

180

[petgoat]

3. "I have been formulating since 1955"

Fifty years of work on a project sounds pretty serious to me.

After all that work, how can you bear the thought of not finishing?
What stands between you and completion?

[oneighty]

4. Tears Shipwack

Just tears.

180

[oneighty]

5. whoops

I responded to the wrong post.

180

[Shipwack]

6. Handle comes from a corruption of a H.S. nickname...

I was called "Shipwrack" by some, because I was going into the Navy, and once got "wracked" at a party...

I first tried using it as a handle bake in the 2400 baud days of BBSs. AFter a few months, I realized that I had mispelt it as "Shipwack", without the 'r'. I decided (correctly) that it made it a more unique name, less likely to be taken by others. Since then, I have usually used it wherever I go.