Roar

Back in the eighties when Tommy worked on the docks and Gina was working the diner all day , Joe the anonymous aquarium enthusiast was importing Indonesian lionfish. In a copycat reenactment of innocent Nemo’s adventure, nefarious accomplices, perhaps with the help of a hurricane helped aquatic Ascari and friends escape to the coral reefs of Florida. They spread slowly and quietly at first but by the 2000s lionfish were becoming a nuisance and now are found along the warmer coasts of North and South America , the Gulf Coast and throughout the Caribbean. The problem is that they are horrible dinner guest. They eat everything. Imagine the patrons at one of Gina’s tables eating all the food in the kitchen, the other diners, the waitstaff, the cook and then not cleaning up or leaving a tip. How rude!

The reefs are suffering as a result. So how do you deal with a rude diner guest? Well the folks at Vox have a few suggestions. You can hunt them , you can eat them, you can even teach sharks to eat them and of course there is also an app for that. I prefer the eating part. Lionfish happen to be quite tasty and are served at many on the local establishments throughout the islands, including The Twisted Cork Cafe , one of our favorite places in Frenchtown and just a few short steps from the docks where SeaSea rest her sails between charters. In my humble opinion, the teaching of sharks to eat lionfish should be left to the more accomplished and daring divers of the group, aka the idiots.