It seems like another lifetime ago that I was obsessed with this fish.

This fish is a permit, for those who may not know. For those of you who do know permit, you probably understand my obsession. It is regarded as the most challenging fish to catch on a fly rod. Some saltwater fly fishermen consider catching a permit in shallow water a lifetime achievement. Just look at that eye; it sees everything and quickly senses danger. It’s spooky; it perceives movement above and below the surface of the water. A permit often vanishes before an angler even sees it.

I was a fly fishing guide for several decades in my youth. Serious saltwater anglers made pilgrimages to my home waters of Key West each year for an opportunity to catch a permit. I hunted these fish all day, nearly every day, for years. Some days the results were heroic. Other days ended in humiliation. Many anglers fished for a week, never made contact, and went home in despair.

A few years ago, I traded my skiff for a sailboat, I migrated from shallow water to blue water, and I exchanged my fly boxes for a locker full of charts to navigate around the world. I don’t fish for permit anymore–it’s another story for another time–but I dearly miss my encounters with this great fish. I loved seeing them feed on the flats, their tails quivering with excitement as they discovered a crab, shrimp, or other crustacean on the ocean bottom. But, it has been years since I have even seen a permit.

These two worlds united serendipitously yesterday on a shallow reef off the Caribbean island of St. John. I was underwater photographing a living stand of elkhorn coral in the Virgin Islands National Park when I sensed movement behind me. I swirled around, saw the shadow of a fin, and found myself face-to-face with the lucid eye and the goofy rubber lips of a mature permit. My heart was apparently beating faster than this fish’s heart because while I hyperventilated, the permit merely looked on in curiosity. In all my years of fishing for permit, I have never seen one not flee from contact with a human being. This permit allowed me to photograph it for 30 minutes while it foraged and actively fed in front of me.

Sometimes wild fish, especially those in a protected environment, acclimate to human contact. They hang out with snorkelers in tourist locations because they are being fed junk food. The location of this reef, however, is not a marked dive spot where tourists swim and chum fish for photographs. I never saw another person in the water during the three days I swam on that reef. What is also unique is that this encounter was in national park waters where sport fishing and the taking of fish is allowed. This permit should have been wary of being caught, like every other permit I have seen.

Instead, this was truly a rare moment of coexistence with a wild creature. I’ll mark this day in the logbook of Stella Maris as a reunion with an old friend.

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As always, sailing is not just about the wind and the sea; the places, the flora, fauna, and people encountered along the way are equally important.

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Let this be a time of grace and peace in our lives – Rev. John C. Baker