1983Fishing and Farming between Mountains and Seas

Chapter 328 Emergency Escape from the Deep Sea Island
"So many fish, they look like sardines!" Zhu Tianpeng shouted at the bow as he continued his work in the afternoon.

Sardines like to swim in the middle and upper layers of the sea, so if there are schools of sardines, they can often be observed on the water surface with the naked eye.

The number of deep-sea sardines before us was unprecedented, like a small whirlwind.

The good thing about Liang Ziqiang's current mid-layer trawling net is that it can basically take into account the upper, middle and lower layers, but it cannot harvest the bottom-layer seafood.

After breaking into the sardine school and harvesting some fish, this net caught much more fish than the first one, it was almost bursting!

Not only was the net bulging and deformed, but the net body was also filled with a lot of fish.

It took a while to dump the catch before the net was finally emptied.

The deck of the fish handling area was not only covered with sardines, but also piled up. In terms of weight, this net was probably two or three times as much as usual. Last time, a whole day of work might not have brought in this much.

This made the crew work harder. Just to clear out the other fish and shrimps mixed in, put them in baskets, and carry them to the basement level took a lot more time than usual. I'm afraid they might not be able to finish the job even if they worked until dark.

They were busy sorting out the catch, and Liang Ziqiang was already thinking about where to moor the boat for the night.

It would be best if we could find an island in the deep sea. If not, we can only drive the boat back a little bit like last time and anchor in a relatively shallow deep sea area for the night.

He decided to look for an island first. First, it would be safer to anchor at an island. Second, he had always been interested in islands in the deep sea.

He did not forget the news reports of later generations. Yanghai City is known as the "City of Hundred Islands". Later generations found that among the more than 200 islands, several of them are blessed with unique natural conditions, with particularly rich and plump seafood, and can be called treasure islands.

Among those islands with rich resources, Unnamed Island may be one of them, but the others are most likely located in deep sea areas.

If you are really lucky and find one or two of them while trawling, you don’t know what kind of valuable seafood is waiting for you!
After searching for a while, everyone on the boat cheered, and even those who were sorting fish looked up into the distance.

On the sea, the silhouette of a small island became clearer and clearer as the large ship approached.

As the boat got closer, Liang Ziqiang began to look for a beach so that he could stop the boat near the beach. Then, before it got dark, he could go to the island to check out whether there were any unexpected valuable seafood on the island.

There was a large flat and open area. Liang Ziqiang drove to the side and prepared to stop the boat. However, when his eyes fell on the beach, the corners of his mouth twitched.

There is almost no sand or stones on this beach, only black and white things.

"Fuck it! What's going on today? This annoying thing has ruined things again and again. This is a snake island!" Deng Zhaocai stopped sorting the fish, took a few looks and started cursing.

There is no doubt that those things with patterns on the beach are all sea snakes!
The key point is that there are too many of them, so densely packed that the sea snakes almost cover the entire beach. Liang Ziqiang's scalp tingles and he gets goose bumps.

Even the original sand and rocks on the beach are almost covered up and disappear.

“There must be more than tens of thousands of them. How can we get to the island?!” Zhu Tianpeng also had a headache.

It's not an exaggeration at all. Liang Ziqiang estimated that there were probably more than 10,000 sea snakes on the entire island.

It is not wrong to say that this island is Snake Island.

It is now early August, the time when some sea snakes lay eggs.

There are two major categories of sea snakes. One is ovoviviparous, which means that the baby snakes hatch inside the mother snake and break out of the eggshell to be born from the mother snake. This type of sea snake rarely goes to the island and reproduces in the sea water.

But some sea snakes are purely oviparous. This type needs to crawl onto islands, lay eggs in a concentrated area, and then let the eggs hatch on the island. After the baby snakes hatch, they will enter the sea on their own.

Sea snakes choose relatively fixed islands for laying eggs. Once they select an island, they will go there every year. The scene is not only spectacular, but also terrifying.

"Let's go and find another place!" Liang Ziqiang immediately backed down.

In a place where poisonous snakes gather, not to mention that there might not be any top-quality seafood, even if there was, who would be willing to buy it? Not to mention landing on the island, even if the boat was parked by the island for a night, no one on the boat would be willing.

The boat is high, but there is no guarantee that sea snakes will not slip onto the boat along the stern slide at night. Even if they don't slip onto the boat, just thinking about a bunch of venomous snakes diligently laying eggs under your nose will keep you awake all night!

Make a U-turn decisively.

When the bow was halfway turned, the sunset in the sky dimmed.

A series of short and unpleasant sounds like crows came from the sky in the distance. When I looked up, I saw the westward sky, which seemed to be cut into countless pieces of cloth.

Hundreds and thousands of large birds were flying in groups, and judging from their direction, they were flying towards this side.

There were so many of them that they changed the evening scene in one fell swoop.

Looking out from the cab, it is hard to tell whether it is the setting sun that has dyed the flock of birds with circles of golden edges, or the flock of birds that has turned the setting sun gray.

"It's a sea eagle! Open it quickly!" Zhu Tianpeng shouted.

In fact, Liang Ziqiang was already rapidly increasing the speed of the boat.

Thirty-six strategies, walking is the best strategy.

Judging from the birds flying closer and closer, they should be white-bellied sea eagles, a medium-sized bird of prey with strong combat capability.

This kind of sea eagle is not comparable to the skuas we encountered last time.

One or two would be fine, but if you encounter such a large group of sea eagles coming like a dusk storm, even humans would have to choose to evacuate quickly to avoid their attack!
Fortunately, the group of white-bellied sea eagles obviously did not regard them as their target. They simply ignored their large ship and headed straight for the Snake Island.

Compared to this huge lump of steel, the things on the island seem much more attractive.

The flock of birds covered the sky, like a meat grinder falling from the sky, landing on the island and making bursts of chirping.

The unpleasant sound of the flock was clearly filled with excitement, like a gluttonous song full of carnival spirit.

As for the wailing of the snakes, it could no longer be heard.

Sea snakes are the first choice for the white-bellied sea eagle's diet. With so many sea eagles coming in force, even if there are tens of thousands of sea snakes, they will just be used as food. There is no suspense.

In the morning, I saw a school of eels more than a mile long being surrounded by sea snakes, and now, in the blink of an eye, it was the turn of the sea snakes to be wiped out. Is this karma?
The law of the jungle and natural selection exist everywhere. However, once you reach the deep sea, this bloody law will be more real and naked.

Anyway, they escaped the Sea Eagle storm, and the dog heads on several people's heads were saved, as well as the large number of sardines on the deck that had not been sorted out in time.

Unable to find another island, Liang Ziqiang had to steer the ship to a direction where the water was relatively less deep and then drop anchor.

After a quick dinner, he joined in, and the six of them were busy sorting fish under the boat lights.

It was not until around nine or ten o'clock in the evening that all the large amounts of sardines on the ship were picked up in baskets and put into the cold storage hold on the basement floor. There were also two baskets of other miscellaneous fish and small crabs, which were also put into the hold and refrigerated.

Although they were all very tired, they still followed the usual practice at night: they had to light the mast lights and then the six of them took turns on duty.

I have truly experienced the hard work of deep-sea operations.

This time, Liang Ziqiang had no plans to return to shore soon. The boat was well stocked with rice, vegetables, drinking water and diesel. He planned to stay in the deep sea for a few more days to catch more fish than last time.

This is a good deal and you can earn more.

(End of this chapter)