Shark Fishing

I arrived at my host family's home around 3pm on Friday. I managed to unpack and stay awake to meet my host mom, Raelee. She is a very sweet woman and the vice principal at the school I am going to work at. I ended up going to sleep at 6pm and sleeping for about 12 hours! I was very jet lagged. 

The Hill family's boat 

Once I woke up, I was invited to join Vic, my host father, and James, their son, on the boat to go shark fishing. I immediately decided to go, and off we went. Once we got there I was informed we were going to be "burling," which is where you tie a bag of dead fish to your boat and the current trails a line of blood, aiming to lead sharks right to where we are fishing. It wasn't until we we were in the boat that Vic turned to me very seriously and asked if I could float. I said yes, then he proceeded to explain the procedure if I happen to fall out. It is about this time that I begin to get a bit nervous. 


It was a very fun day all in all. I caught one little shark, which we threw back and two others that the men caught, which we kept. Once we started fishing and we were about to go in, Vic told me that in the very spot we were fishing his son caught (on accident) a great white shark. I noticed a pattern: they tell me scary stuff after I am in the position to refuse.  It was a great day on the boat for me. I believe they are having friends over "for a barbecue" tonight, which should be an interesting time.

 

These are the other things we caught today. On the left is a star fish and the right is a sting ray.