I learnt to dive 15 years ago, over almost six months of successive Thursday evenings, in a swimming pool in Swiss Cottage. My friend Jaimie learned to dive a few weeks ago, in just four days, on the island of Alphonse, in the Seychelles. While I was learning the vital skills of buddy breathing and buoyancy control back in 1989, the most diverting visual attractions on offer - my foretaste of great ocean adventures to come - were discarded corn plasters, matted balls of hair, and the grey-blue lines on the floor of the pool. In contrast, by the end of his second lesson in the Alphonse lagoon, Jaimie had a shoal of admiring parrot fish all to himself, and was on nodding terms with the local turtle.
My first open-water dive took place in a cold muddy quarry in Leicestershire, euphemistically called Stoney Cove, and the only fish I saw were a pair of gawping roach. Jaimie's first open-water dive was in the crystal waters of the stunning coral reef that surrounds the island, and within seconds of descending to the bottom, through small galaxies of shimmering reef fish, he found himself looking at a 10-ft nurse shark. I was with him at the time, and the experience of watching Jaimie watching the shark watching him actually made me laugh underwater. This was partly in sheer disbelief at the absurd contrast in our learning experiences, and the folly of my plodding progress all those years ago. But it was mainly because I knew that, despite the privilege of such an encounter on a first dive, the last thing Jaimie wanted to be looking at was a shark of any kind.
His fear of sharks is matched only by his fear of spiders (which, incidentally, is matched only by my fear of spiders). Although our dive guide, Norbert, had mentioned the possibility that we would see a shark, Jaimie had assumed he was joking. In fact, he told me afterwards that his first thought on seeing the shark, which was lying motionless in a sandy gully on the reef, was that it was a plastic one placed by the dive team as an elaborate practical joke. But when he noticed how the gills of the fish were rippling, and how its unmistakably sharky tail tilted occasionally to steady itself in the current, his fantasy rationalisation rapidly began to fade.
Despite my amusement, I felt obliged to do something to allay his fears. I had seen a few nurse sharks before, and I happened to know that, of all the sharks, they are the least likely to give divers any kind of grief. They are passive bottom feeders, who tend to lie up and sleep during the day, and swim lazily over the reef at night, munching the odd crab. They are the teddy bears of the shark world, in fact. In order to make this point, I swam towards the shark, with my hand stretched out towards its head, and made what I intended as gentle stroking motions a couple of feet away. At the same time, I looked over towards Jaimie and, with my non-stroking hand, made the thumb and finger circle that is the underwater signal for 'everything's OK'.
Jaimie's response was to invent an entirely new signal in the sub-aqua lexicon. It involved waving the extended index finger of his right hand vigorously from side to side, while shaking his head, and the meaning was clear: 'Listen, don't muck about. I can see that is a totally shark-shaped fish, so can we please swim rapidly in the opposite direction, now!'
Back on dry land, Jaimie reminded me that a principal objective of our week on Alphonse was that we should be eating the local fish, and not the other way round. In order to reassert our rightful place in the tropical food chain, we decided to take a day off from diving, and charter the island's serious fish-hunting boat, Bijoutier, in pursuit of a Seychellois fish supper. One of the finest eating fish in the Indian ocean - and therefore probably the world - is the yellowtail tuna. In theory we were a couple of weeks too early to hook up with the seasonal run of yellowtail, but the odd fish had already been picked up before our arrival, so there was a faint hope of striking lucky. On the strength of that, I packed in my fishing box a tube of wasabi, a bottle of Kikkoman soy sauce, some pickled ginger, and a Tupperware box of vinegar rice. As an afterthought, I hacked down a large, banana leaf from the tree outside our bungalow, rolled it up, and stashed it in my rod case.
Jaimie took this level of preparation to be a cast-iron guarantee that the yellowtail, and indeed every other sushi-grade pelagic we might have hoped to encounter, would elude us for the entire day. And, for a while, it seemed like he might be right, but then 'Toooo-naah!' yelled Jude, our Seychellois fishing guide - jabbing his finger out to sea. A few hundred metres from the boat, there was a commotion in the water, all white splashes and sliver flashes. 'That's yellowtail,' said our skipper, Vaughan, calmly turning the boat towards the action.
I was having a private Attenborough moment at this fishy feeding frenzy, when I heard the pulse-quickening 'ZZZzzeeee!' of a reel gleefully pouring out line to a running fish. I grabbed the twitching rod and yanked on it. The fish yanked back, almost wresting the rod from my arms, and Jude helped me guide the rod butt into the 'stand-up' rig, a pivoting, swivelling rod holder designed to take some of the heat out of playing fast-running fish.
Mine wasn't quite the monster I'd first reckoned it and, after a few short surges it began, grudgingly, to come to the boat. Still, it was enough to make my arms ache. And it was a relief when Jude swung the steel-hooked gaffing pole over the side, and hauled on board a solid, quivering muscle of a fish. It was a yellowtail of about 15 kilos. 'A baby,' said Vaughan, mildly mocking my efforts. A few minutes later, it was Jaimie's turn to grunt, sweat and strain, and try to look nonchalantly tough. He made a showy job of it, I thought, but the full display was entirely justified when, after a struggle of a good 15 minutes, a second yellowtail, well over twice the size of mine, was hauled on board. 'How about lunch,' he asked, coolly. I was more than ready to oblige.
I laid out the banana leaf on the deck, and the over-optimistic eccentricity of my first-response sushi kit immediately came into its own. I only had my chunky diving knife to carve the fish with, but it was razor sharp, and did the job better than I expected. Individually moulded fingers of sushi rice seemed too formal, so I spread the rice in a thick layer over the banana leaf, and laid generous slices of tuna over it. I dabbed on little piles of wasabi and pickled ginger around the rice and between the fish. My sushi bar was open for business.
My God, it was good. The fish had an irresistible resistance, and a fullness to it, that I have never encountered in restaurant sushi - whose tuna, even when of the highest quality, has invariably been frozen. Alphonse is without doubt the ultimate Indian Ocean destination for diving and fishing, and for those who like to combine the two it is sheer heaven. What made it extra special was that, for a few brief moments at least, it also became the sushi capital of the world.
· Hugh travelled with Sunset Faraway Holidays. A six-night holiday on Alphonse, including full-board accommodation, direct Air Seychelles flights to Mahé and transfers to Alphonse, costs from £1,976 per person. Contact Sunset Faraway Holidays on 020 7501 1997 or www.sunset.co.uk. For fishing enthusiasts, the eight-night Sunset Saltfly Classic tournament on Alphonse runs from 15-22 January 2005 and costs from £3,150 per person. Contact www.worldwidefishingsafaris.co.uk or 01733 271123. For details on the Seychelles, visit www.aspureasitgets.com or 020 7202 6363.
Seychellois fish curry
This is a very versatile recipe, which I encountered in many forms during my stay in the Seychelles, made with various different fish and shellfish, including tuna, grouper, crab and octopus. The important thing is to start with a good, rich fish stock. The best thing is therefore to fillet any fish you are going to put in the curry, and use all the heads and skeletons to make the stock.
For an Anglicised version of this curry, use firm-fleshed fish with a good bony head such as black bream, grey mullet and gurnard, to help make the stock rich. Once you've got the stock-based curry sauce sorted, you can add all sorts of seafood at the end - including lobster, large prawns, squid and scallops. Chunks of fresh mackerel, as the Seychellois bonito, are also a worthwhile addition.
To feed 6
about 2 kilos of mixed fish, scaled and gutted
500g prepared scallops, or cleaned squid, or pre-cooked octopus, or a mixture
stock veg and herbs: onions, carrots, celery, fennel, parsley, dill, bay leaves, garlic...
2-4 tbs curry paste or powder
1 large tin creamed coconut
500g potatoes, peeled
a couple of fresh limes
fresh coriander leaves
salt, black pepper, cayenne pepper
Take the fish and slice the fillets off them with a very sharp knife. Place the heads and chopped up skeletons in a pan with whatever stock vegetables and fishy herbs you can muster - bay leaves, a few crushed garlic cloves, a nugget of ginger root if you like, peppercorns - cover with water and simmer for half an hour. Leave to cool with all the bits in, then strain.
Finely chop a large onion and fry gently in a large pan in a little oil. Add your favourite blend of curry powder or paste (I bought the local blend from the Mahé market back with me) in a quantity that reflects the amount of heat you like - say a couple of good tablespoons if it's a mild blend. Fry for a further few minutes, then add about a litre of the fish stock, and a whole tin of creamed coconut, and a good teaspoon of salt. Add the potatoes, peeled and cut into forkable chunks. Bring the sauce to the boil and simmer gently for 20-30 minutes until the potatoes begin to break up and thicken the sauce a little. Taste, adjust the seasoning, including the heat level, using cayenne pepper.
Slice any larger fish fillets into thick strips or suitable chunks, and add to the gently simmering sauce (along with the scallops, squid or octopus, and any other fresh seafood you want to include). Cook for just 4-6 more minutes, so the fish is just cooked through. Serve at once, in bowls rather than plates, as this is practically a soup. If you like you can sprinkle over fresh chopped coriander, and squeeze over a little fresh lime. Serve with plain boiled rice.
