Hey Shrimp

The notes in the folder said “Be sure to go shrimping.” I had no idea what that meant. But when last year’s leaders say “Go shrimping,” we figured we better go shrimping.

At dinner that evening, we announced to our students that as soon as it was dark and the tide was out far enough, we were going shrimping. They had no more idea what shrimping entailed than I did, but they knew it was something worth getting excited about.

Mike from Telunas lead us down to the beach and sat us on the stumps that ringed the bonfire pit. He explained how shrimping worked.

Ten minutes later, in groups of four and five, equipped with our flashlights and mini-spears, we headed out. Our mini-spears looked like marshmallow roasting forks but thinner and with a multi-prong tip on the end. Each group had a local staff member from the resort leading the way. The groups spread out into ankle-deep water. We all kept our eyes peeled, but it was invariably our guide who spotted the shrimp. He would hold his light on the shrimp and point it out with his spear if necessary. One of the kids or I would ease up on it, lower our spear into place and when our spear was two or three inches above the shrimp, thrust it into the water hopefully harpooning a shrimp.

If we managed to snag the shrimp, we’d lift our mini-spear up to our guide’s bucket, rest the fork in a notch in the bucket’s lip, and pull back until the shrimp pulled free and fell into the bucket.

I got pretty good at spearing the things, but for the life of me I could not spot the little buggers. They are clear in color and half the time they were buried in the sand so that only their tiny eyes were visible. My flashlight was way too weak, so while my students spread out, I had to stay close to our guide and his mega-watt headlamp. I was amazed at his eagle eyes. He would sweep his light across the water and stop it on a location ten or twelve feet away. I would walk over to where he was shining his light and would see nothing. There were times when he was literally pointing with his spear three inches above where there was a shrimp and I still couldn’t see it. How he spotted it from ten feet out, I will never know. With blind faith, I would jam my fork in where he said and –sure enough- I would come up with a shrimp.

One of my students, David had wandered from our small group. He had a strong flashlight and had gotten the hang of shrimping. David not only was getting good at spearing the little suckers, but was surprisingly good at spotting them. Now what you need to know is that I can’t get David to focus for more than three minutes on a single task in the classroom. But for forty-five minutes, he walked around hunched over peering into ankle-deep water and out-shrimped all of us.

We turned all of our shrimp over to the Telunas staff and finished the night sharing our tales of conquest around the bon fire. We were pleasantly surprised, when the next night among all the other delicious food the staff always prepared at every meal, there was a platter heaped with the shrimp that we had caught.

Few things in life are more satisfying than eating food you have caught. They were yummy.