Squids In

We showed up at Dolphin Central, armed with a token fish that some bloke had given us, and waited, waited, waited. I saw some fins in the distance and it looked like the game was on, but for whatever capricious reason the unfathomable brain of the pod had fathomed, whether it was insufficient numbers of potential feeders or the weather or somebody had peed in the water, the dolphins kept their distance and we became disappointed would-be dolphin feeders.

Back to camp for some swimming while the men pumped up their chests and set off for some squid-fishing... coming back later with several of these remarkable creatures with their amazing chromatophores no longer rippling colour across their skins and their multiple cooperating brains quite dead.

When they are caught and hauled out of the water their emergency response is to squirt black 'ink' in fountains that reach for metres and it's a sight to behold, perhaps a sign of the terror they may be experiencing. But all that is of no concern, of course, when calamari is potentially on the menu.

Nicole has always nurtured an ambition to cut open dead bodies, preferably human, however on this occasion she launched herself with great enthusiasm at the task of dissecting the catch and turning it into dinner, there on the beach with everyone looking and playing a great game of guess-the-organ as the sun set over the bay.

The fishermen seemed to have excellent skills at getting the squid out of the water and extinguishing their too-short lives but precious little idea of how to turn them into food that was safe to eat. Nicole set about skinning, cutting, and cleaning the catch and proceeded to pan-fry them to turn them into an entrée which was reportedly very tasty, with ringy bits that we'd previously thought were massive tentacular slices actually slices of the body and the thin, spindly tentacles turned into something like crispy spindly tentacular thingies.

A great sense of achievement was in the air, as well as a burgeoning breeze. We drank beer and wine, and listened to Pink Floyd, and later on I heard Fleetwood Mac as I put Lyra to sleep before the DJ himself fell asleep and normal service resumed.