Water Sports

I love the water, rivers, lakes, and ocean.

When I am close to the water I can't resist peering in to look for water life.

(I think it is humans hunting instinct.)

When I find fish I always think to myself " Can I catch it? How can I catch it?"

When I go to the ocean etc, I always take a cheap reel and rod.

Sometimes I buy Aoisome (a type of Japanese sand worm) for bait but I am trying not to buy live bait because I always feel bad about killing the bait.

I had stopped fishing for a long time feeling that it was cruel, but a good friend , who died in a car accident, once told me that although fishing is killing, eating the fish allows them to go to heaven, so I started fishing again.

We can find rock-shellfish on the rock at the seaside, I use it for the bait.

(It is bad for the rock-shellfish but if I buy Aoisome I waste too many lives. Some times, giving in to the temptation of convenience, I buy Aoisome.)

My fishing tackle are very simple.

I leave 30 cm of line between the sinker and single hook.

I'm happy about catching Kisu, Megochi, they live at bottom of the sea, and some time Octopus or Umitanago.

The beautiful thing about the sea is that it always provides you something.

Blow fish make me nervous.

If I try to send them to heaven I will also go there.

Nov 2003 Nago Okinawa

Until I grew up, I couldn't swim.

There was a swimming pool at my elementary school but there were logs floating in it and frogs lived there.

We didn't have swimming class until we graduated from junior high.

We were banned from swimming in ponds or rivers and I had only one opportunity per year to visit the sea.

Our college had swimming lessons but my buoyancy was bad so if I fell in to the water and couldn't hold to some thing I would have drowned within minutes.

After I married I went to swimming school and now finally I can swim.

I love looking in to the sea so I always take goggles with me when I go to the sea.

I think about the possibility of getting a cramp in the water and drowning so, I always take a flotation device on a rope and tie the rope around my neck.

(Thankfully, I have not needed to use it yet.)

I always wear a T-shirt to protect myself from sunburn.

(When I see people sun baking, despite the danger of skin cancer and the pain of burns, I don't think they are wise.)

A T-shirt also protect me from sudden drops in water temperature.

I also wear running shoes to protect my feet and gloves to protect my hands in rocky places.

When the waves are strong I wear jeans as well.

I believe that "Truly joyful things in life do not require much money."

I need nothing more than my outfit to enjoy the sea.

100 m from the shore of a swimming beach in Wajima city Ishikawa prefecture, my wife's home town, while floating close to Kameno Iwa, or turtle rock, I saw a school of cuttlefish.

I was moved.

(They looked like a formation of spaceships)

The flotation device that I'm using in this picture, ,I bought for my son when he was 2 years old. He is now 29.

So I have been using it for 27 years.

Last summer I bought a life jacket in a fishing store for 1500 yen.

It's great. I'll never drown wearing it.

When I was swimming by wearing it, I tried to fish that I found.

But It was very hard.

2005.11.10

Japanese

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