While in Aruba I ate Fish for every single meal…except two. I’m not kidding, I probably glow at night right now due to all the mercury in my bloodstream! But what was I supposed to do? I love fish and here I am on an Island with some of the best fresh fish that there is to offer. (When I say fresh I mean straight out of the water and onto the grill. At one restaurant if you drank a bit too much and got tipsy…you were going to tip right over into the water. Aruba, apparently, has not heard of railings ladies and gentlemen, nor do they think it is particularly odd to have a 13 year old fishing off the very same dock that you are eating at while his parents eat dinner 5 feet away.)
So fish it was, for each lunch and dinner (Hey when in Aruba, right?). The main island delight is Grouper; apparently Aruba has a great market of Grouper so you have to eat it at least once if you are there. I ate it three times. (Twice as a dish, once as a sandwich!) So I ate Grouper happily, Mahi Mahi when I tired of the Grouper, and then Grouper when I tired of the Mahi Mahi. This was some of the best fish I have ever eaten.
Now I know some of you who know me must be asking yourself, “But Beth, you love fish and the ocean so much and you have a wealth of useless information about the safety of our oceans, how on earth can you eat so much fish?” Not to mention the worry about me never being able to have a child due to the high levels of mercury in my system. Don’t worry your pretty little heads, I am a very responsible fish eater and I only consume fish, which are not endangered. (No shark fin soup for me...(you know who I am talking to, ahem, ahem!))
After my fish binge and on my way back into the states we made a pit stop in HOT-lanta …to join all the other small children at the Georgia Aquarium. The food court immediately disenchanted me as they served fish, which I found to be a bit too close for comfort. (Nor was I particularly comfortable with the Legal Seafood boasting the freshest fish in Atlanta which was right across the street…Atlanta is land-locked, are you getting those fish so fresh because you are sticking your fishing polls into the various exhibits?!) The aquarium was amazing, more than I ever could have asked for, although for some reason I had a hard time believing that this was the biggest aquarium in the world, basically because it looked so small to me. This might be due in part to the fact that I was a lot smaller the last time I was at an aquarium. (The Shark Reef in Vegas when I was 21 is not counted here).
However, this was also where the most disturbing thing happened to me ever, although I will admit had I actually done the “dive” with “gentle giants” this might have freaked me out more, but I digress. HAVE YOU EVER SEEN A GROUPER IN REAL LIFE?! Like other than on a plate?! OH MY GOD! I now know why the piece is always so f-ing huge! GROUPERS ARE INSANLY BIG! I will say this, if I met a grouper in the ocean, I would swim so fast that I would actually propel myself on TOP of the water making people think I was able to walk on water like Jesus! These things are TERRIFYING. Not only are they gi-normous, but they are clearly the Tony Sopranos of the ocean! They are not only extremely large and in charge, but they also look mean as hell. Oh and side note, if you are thinking, it’s just a fish Beth, you own a fish, how could you be so scared? Well, the guy at the aquarium let us know they will and DO eat fish in their exhibit. He didn’t say that about the SHARKS! But he said it about the Groupers.
Tell me honestly, these guys don’t look like they are about to follow through on a hit. I had nightmares that night and the entire plane ride home that the fish was coming for me. Not to mention the fact that these two came out of nowhere and then stayed in front of me staring the entire time I was there. They prevented me from getting a good shot of the Whale Shark and the Manta Ray. Which are both huge. Really Huge. And the Grouper BLOCKED THE SHOT. Then as mysteriously as they appeared out of the dark, as soon as I walked away, they disappeared back into the blue abyss. So in conclusion, I am laying off the Grouper for a while, and I am not seeking out any fish I have eaten before ever again.
Sidenote: In part I blame the Grouper for the power outage that overtook the entire island one night, they claim it was lightening that hit a transformer, I think the Aruba Grouper carried it out. I was eating the world's largest piece of Grouper at the time and as soon as I went in for my last bite, BAM the lights went down...on the ENTIRE ISLAND. That's the last time I ever mess with the local mob boss in the ocean!
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