Only after climbing aboard as usual did he lean against the gunwale, panting as he pulled on the line to haul up the net bag. "Have you brought up all the fishing pots?"
"Four are up, two left. I was just about to finish bringing them in when I saw you surface."
"Oh, good, as long as none got stuck again." His strength was running low now, and he couldn't go down again anytime soon. Getting them all back was good enough.
As Father Ye hauled in the fishing pots, he glanced over at the net bag his son had just pulled up. "All abalone?"
"More or less." Ye Yaodong kept working as he spoke, tipping out the catch from the bag. "There's a small green lobster, and a..."
"East Star Grouper?"
East Star my ass...
If that hadn't been his father, he would have said it outright.
"It's a white-lined red bass! Not an East Star Grouper. I couldn't see clearly underwater just now, so I thought it was an East Star Grouper too."
The delighted look vanished from Father Ye's face. "Oh, right. The tail's different. I mistook it."
Ye Yaodong couldn't be bothered to vent its swim bladder and tossed it into a basket nearby. They were heading back soon anyway.
"Why is it all abalone this time? There's only one small green lobster too."
He glanced up at his father. Hadn't he been telling him not to go back into the water just now? Now he thought there wasn't enough catch?
"I wasted some time looking for the fishing pot earlier. It had sunk into the wreck. I searched around for ages without seeing it, then found it inside the wreck. That's where I saw this white-lined red bass too..."
"Oh, right. Let's try hauling up