A great experience with the locals

What a pleasure it was to return to the Eastern Bay of Plenty from Hong Kong last week. The blue skies and the blue water were certainly part of the joy, though even more impressive was the friendliness of the locals. Having been born in Edgecumbe and with parents still living in EBOP it is not like I am not familiar with the locals.

What motivated me to write this email was a particularly great experience at the Thornton river bar last week. The kahawai were running and there were folks there reeling them in with great smiles. I was standing there amongst them watching the fish in the waves wishing I had come down with the rod. All of a sudden, one of the guys as he was carrying another fish to his stash asked me if I liked fish. I said yeah and with that he handed me the fish! Wow you can imagine the size of my smile and the amazement on my mother’s face. We got chatting to the guy and he said his name was “Tired” which seemed a strange name, especially when his wife was waist deep in the waves catching the fish!!! Next minute he was passing me another two fish. Here I was now standing amongst the fisher folk with 3 fish and no rod!

Thanking him and saying we were leaving he said something looks wrong, you need two fish in each hand so with that the next fish from his wife’s rod was passed to us. That has got to be one of my greatest moments of sharing I have experienced with a stranger. You should have seen the look on my wife’s face when we got back to the car!!!

So a big thanks to “Tired”, the smoked kahawai tasted superb.

Grow well
Merrin