Ocean Watch

Monday, October 18, 1999

Want to know my secrets?
I dislike fish

FOR years, readers have been phoning and writing me their comments and impressions about things I write in this column. I love hearing from my fellow ocean watchers, but my guilt soars sky high during some of these contacts. This is because I don't feel nearly as brave or upstanding or scholarly as some people think I am. Here are some confessions:

I don't know most of the scientific names of plants and animals, and don't want to either. These Latin or Greek words are not only hard to remember; they're often silly and inexplicable.

For example, the butterfly fish bearing one spot on each side is named Chaetodon unimaculatus. Unimaculatus means one spot. However, the butterfly fish bearing two spots on each side is called Chaetodon quadrimaculatus. Quadrimaculatus mean four spots. Huh? And just try pronouncing Chaetodon.

Over and over, I have advised people to keep their hands and feet off our reefs and their inhabitants. Don't stand on the coral and don't touch everything you see, I lecture.

Well, last summer, my friends and I found a rare and unusual kind of mollusk called an umbrella slug -- and killed it. Yes, we handled it to death. It was an accident but the animal died, and just days after I wrote a column suggesting that people stop pestering pufferfish for their own amusement.

I don't like to eat fish. Because I think they are beautiful, and feel pain and anguish like other animals, I have trouble killing them. And if I can't kill them myself, I don't think it's right to buy them in markets or order them in restaurants.

That vegetarian line isn't much of a confession. But this is: This lofty I-don't-want-to-kill-fish thing isn't a sacrifice because I don't like fish anyway.

I grew up in a small Wisconsin town where fish eating was an alien ritual, mostly for Catholics on Fridays. On the rare occasion we Lutherans ate fish, it was deep-fried at a tavern fish fry or Mrs. Paul's fish sticks, smothered in ketchup.

My fish forfeiture is fraudulent. I like beef.

I'm afraid of the surf. I'm not talking about a healthy respect for the waves here; I'm talking terror.

Sometimes I force myself into the ocean anyway, but then I'm often miserable. I can't get it out of my mind that a giant washing machine of a wave is coming to pick me up, run me through its heavy-duty cycle and never let me breathe again.

My fear of the surf doesn't affect my life nearly as much as my other big water worry: I'm afraid of scuba diving.

Before most dives, my mouth goes dry, my heart pounds and I wonder what fiend invented a sport that makes you jump into deep water wearing lead weights. If the reward of seeing all those magnificent marine animals weren't so great, I would never scuba dive.

MY final secret: I love feeding the fish at Hanauma Bay. It's so much fun for so many people that I find it difficult to support the new ban on it there.

University of Hawaii researcher Dick Brock, who is comparing marine life and water quality before and after the ban, also surveyed visitors about how they feel about fish feeding. Most say they are for the ban but add that the best thing about the bay is the tameness of the fish and the fun of feeding them.

Confused? Me too. I hope officials will base their final fish-feeding decision on Brock's study results rather than emotional rhetoric.

Few us of us know the kind of personal image we project but when your write a column, you get more feedback than usual. Thank you readers, for so often believing the best of me.