1983Fishing and Farming between Mountains and Seas

Chapter 460 Seeing the Mermaid with Your Own Eyes

"This?"

Completely different from his wife's reaction, Liang Ziqiang showed joy on his face and hurried forward.

He put his hand into the sea water and touched the dark grey, round body of the big guy. The skin looked rough, but it felt a little slippery and a little cold.

The thing showed no intention of resisting and let him touch it very docilely. Even the gourd was not as cooperative as it was. It seemed as if they were very familiar with each other.

Slowly, she turned around, from lying prone in the water to floating on the surface, lying on her back, holding a baby of the same shape in her arms, and she seemed to be feeding the baby with her armpits.

Just floating and feeding...

Chen Xiangbei was amazed by the sight and wanted to come over and touch it a few times, but she was a little scared.

"People often say there are mermaids in the sea, but this is what they are talking about!" Liang Ziqiang told his wife.

"It, a mermaid? It's fat and black, how can it look like a mermaid?"

"The main thing is that it can float and stand on the sea like a human being, and it often holds a baby in its arms. From a distance, the fishermen think it looks like a woman standing on the sea coaxing a baby!" Liang Ziqiang explained to his wife.

"Is it really called a mermaid?" Chen Xiangbei thought this creature was quite magical.

"It's actually called a manatee. Its skin is like that of a cow, and it doesn't eat fish or meat. It only eats grass. When it gets to a place with seaweed, it eats large tracts of it, like a lawn mower. Isn't it a bit like a cow?"

"Then it doesn't bite?"

Obviously, after Chen Xiangbei gradually saw it clearly, she also found that this magical thing was very interesting and particularly cute. In comparison, it was even cuter than a gourd.

"Do you think it will bite me?" Liang Ziqiang patted the manatee's round body a few more times.

The latter didn't even try to dodge, but slowly stood up, looked up at them, and then closed his eyelids again.

Chen Xiangbei saw it more clearly now and found that the manatee had no hair on its body, and its skin was very thick and wrinkled. This creature actually only had front limbs like fins, and no hind limbs, which made it more like a human, and not like ordinary four-limbed animals.

In fact, there is another creature in the sea that looks almost the same as the manatee in front of us, and is also silly, called the dugong. The biggest difference is the tail. The dugong's tail is forked, while the manatee's tail is like a palm leaf fan.

Seeing the manatee in front of him looking so silly, Chen Xiangbei couldn't help it, so he came over and reached out to touch its body.

Perhaps because it felt so good, or perhaps because the manatee was so cooperative, Chen Xiangbei became a little addicted. He couldn't stop touching it and didn't intend to stop.

Hulu had gone into the water at some point and swam over, swimming in circles in the water near the manatee, showing no fear of the manatee at all.

But Chen Xiangbei went a little too far and reached out to tease the baby in the other person's arms.

The manatee's front limbs loosened and the baby fell out, and the baby manatee really fell into Chen Xiangbei's hands.

Chen Xiangbei was now laughing uncontrollably, and she held the little manatee baby in her arms and started to coax him, as if he had found a treasure.

The amazing thing is that even though its baby was snatched away, the sea cow still didn't seem to be angry at all. It's called a manatee, but its temper is much gentler than that of a cow.

Liang Ziqiang had never seen such a temperless creature in the world.

"Do you want to hug this little fat boy too?" Chen Xiangbei handed the little manatee to him again.

He actually took it and hugged it a few times. There was nothing he could do. It was rare to encounter a manatee, and it was so easy to get along with. Who wouldn't want to play with it if they did?
Don't think that he can encounter this thing just because he often goes to the deep sea. On the contrary, manatees never go to the deep sea and can only appear in shallow waters.

But it is not necessarily encountered in all shallow seas. In my country, it mainly appears occasionally in the shallow seas of the South China Sea, and also in the straits of the Gulf Islands.

"Stop teasing it and give the baby back to it quickly. It seems to be crying!" Chen Xiangbei glanced at the sea cow next to her and suddenly urged Liang Ziqiang.

Crying? Liang Ziqiang turned around and saw, is she really crying?
The manatee's eyes are not big, but at this moment, it was as if a spring had opened. Tears kept coming out of his eyes, flowing all over his face and nose. The tears were much more exaggerated than those of humans when they cried!
Not only that, but they also fell into the sea in bunches. Who could have thought that the iron tower-like manatee would cry so hard?

This made Chen Xiangbei feel so guilty that she quickly stuffed the little manatee back into its arms.

However, after taking the baby back, the sea cow continued to cry until it turned around and dived back into the sea with the baby in its arms.

"It's not sadness, nor are they tears. A manatee's eyes cannot live without water. Once it leaves water, something like sea water will flow out to protect its eyes!"

Liang Ziqiang knows a lot about these strange and wonderful animals in the sea.

"Is it so strange?"

Chen Xiangbei felt that this thing was extremely interesting. It was a pity that after the manatee dived into the water, it ate a few mouthfuls of seaweed and did not stay any longer, gradually swimming towards deeper waters.

The two men also withdrew their gaze and started prying mussels again. Soon, they had pried out another large bucket of mussels.

Finding a lot of crabs swimming in the water, Chen Xiangbei picked up the hand-scoop net in the bucket and went to catch the crabs again.

Liang Ziqiang used curved pliers to specifically catch crabs hiding in the cracks of rocks.

There are some stone crabs and swimming crabs, but unfortunately there are not many red crabs in this season.

We continued walking forward and later came across a nest of red flower crabs. We scooped and clamped all of them and put them into the bucket.

I took out my watch and looked at it. It was already twelve o'clock.

The two of them carried several buckets of mussels, crabs, and clams back to the boat. Liang Ziqiang helped, and his wife started cooking. Soon the aroma of food wafted from the boat, like a home floating on the water.

Naturally, Chen Xiangbei didn't like the goby, so she chose chicken cage pomfret and red flower crab as today's lunch.

She was very careful. When she set out, she brought oil, salt, soy sauce, garlic, onion, and ginger with her. She even brought the bottle of rice wine sent by her parents on board.

She braised the chicken cage pomfret with soy sauce, ginger, scallion and cooking wine.

The red flower crab is steamed, but shredded green onions are also added.

"Try it and see if the chicken cage pomfret is tasty!" After sitting down on the boat, she picked up a piece of chicken cage pomfret with chopsticks and put it in his rice bowl.

Liang Ziqiang took a bite and immediately cheered to his wife:
"This is the first time I've had such a good meal on a ship!"

Yes, usually when going out to sea to fish, a few crew members just cook some dishes randomly, relying entirely on the ingredients themselves being freshly caught, so they don't care about the taste.

After lunch, the two continued to get off the boat and pried another bucket of mussels along the reef. They could take them home and raise them for a long time. The longer they were raised, the cleaner the sand and other things in their meat would be.

Then we found a small piece of chicken claw snail. Although it was not as plump as the one on the nameless island, we pried it off since we came across it.

In the past, when he saw chicken claw snails, his eyes would light up and he would immediately take them to the city to sell. Until now, he has never tasted what this thing tastes like.

Nowadays, deep-sea fishing can bring in a lot of income, so I don't really rely on chicken claw snails to make money. I don't have much on hand, so I can take it home and cook it for myself.

Liang Ziqiang actually wanted to catch one or two airplane crabs on the island, as he had caught some here before.

Unfortunately, until the sun gradually set, we found many red flower crabs, but not a single airplane crab was seen.

When they were almost done with the day's scouring, Chen Xiangbei suddenly raised the bent iron pliers in her hand and shook them at him:
"Aqiang, look, this crab is different. It feels like oil is leaking out of its legs!"

Liang Ziqiang walked closer and took a look.

Wow, I didn’t catch the airplane crab, but I caught something even rarer than the airplane crab!
(End of this chapter)