Something Fishy

It’s not often these days I get thrown a curved ball but I came across something at the beginning of last month and I had no idea what it was.

We were walking through the harbour at San Sebastian on the island of La Gomera in the Canaries. I adore looking down off the wharfs into the clear waters of island harbours. A little scattered bread attracts whole shoals of beautifully coloured fish, sometimes hundred turn and churn the water as they compete for each crust. As we walked along I caught sight of something below the surface among the anchor cables which led me to comment “What the hell is that?”

At first I even questioned that is was something alive. As it moved and propelled along it became apparent it was some sort of fish. About a metre long very thin with bold markings at the tail end it was joined by another similar but smaller animal. As I was attempting to take a few photographs a bystander also commented that he had never seen fish quite like them nor had he ever seen them depicted. Neither had I.

It was only on returning to good old Blighty that I was able to identify them as Atlantic Cornet Fish.