Navy Story #29
Flying Fish
Have you ever heard about fish that can fly? There really are such critters in the world. I have seen them with my own eyes. I even have two slides that I took of some flying fish
that were frolicking off the bow of my ship, the USS Pensacola, as we were underway in the Atlantic Ocean in July of 1973. But you can't see the fish in the pictures. I just checked the slides with my magnifying glass,
and I can barely make out some fuzzy images of what might be a few fish. I guess the light wasn't very good, or I had the camera set for a slow shutter speed, or something like that. But I know for sure that there were
fish in the air when I took the pictures! I was on the forecastle, which is about 25 or 30 feet above the water, and the fish are fairly small (maybe 4 or 5 inches long), so I'm not really surprised that I can't make
out the fish very well in the pictures. I can show you some nice pictures of ocean water from the forecastle, if you ever want to see them (they're in box 7, roll 74)! Or you can see them online at
I'm not kidding, there are flying fish in these two pictures. And I just put some pictures in the set that I got from the Web, which show a nice close-up of one species of flying
fish, and also a diagram of the fins and enlarged tail.
Let me tell you what I observed of how these fish fly. Well, actually, they just glide, but it's still amazing to see. As in the case of the pictures that you can't see any
fish in, these critters usually show up on a very calm day. As the ship glides through the water, the fish come alongside and swim just as fast as the ship is going, usually very close to, but not quite in, the ship's
bow wave. (That's the wave that the front of the ship makes in the water as it moves along.) The fish get very near the surface, and occasionally swim right out of the water, soaring into the air and then spreading a
set of very long fins that act as wings. They can glide in the air for several seconds (my shipmates and I timed a few of them being airborne for at least 5 seconds) before they run out of speed. At that point, they can
either drop completely back into the water to get up some speed again, or they can put just their tail into the water and wiggle it as they continue to glide, which gives them enough speed for a brief additional glide. It's
fascinating to watch them play like that.
The articles that I found on the Web about flying fish say that these fish glide in order to avoid being eaten by other fish. But when they're alongside a ship, they're playing.
I think it's great that God's creatures can have fun.