What I Did For Love . . .

Today reminded me of the fantastic Marvin Hamlisch song from Chorus Line, What I Did For Love.
The opening line is: "Kiss today goodbye . . ."

(What, so I'm into musicals - whadaboutid - ya wanna make sumthin' our of it - wanna step outside, or somethin'. Like I ain't got no culture? Forgetaboutid.)

So, today was a valiant effort in the often frustrating sport of fishing.
In which, you control none of the variables and yet must deal with all of them.
Variables that include weather, seas, fish, and boats.
All of which are highly unstable ingredients to throw into a caldron - the likes of the ocean.
A caldron that often yields bitter potions.

Today was such a day.
I met Dave at the dock at 5:15, and his 3 friends were aboard by 6:00, and we were off.

Now, there is not a fisherman alive who would not like to meet the guy who broadcasts the NOAA weather reports, because they are so famously wrong. And today was one of those days.

Forecasted*: 10-15 knot winds with 2-3 foot seas.
*(Which is only slightly more than we traveled in yesterday, and it was beautiful)
Actual: 20 - 25 knot winds; 4- 6 foot seas with occasional torrential showers.

We had discussed last night about going offshore versus staying in close, and chose the latter.
However, we had received a report and "numbers" (coordinates) of a hot bottom fishing spot further offshore from one of the friend's Dad - who had fished there yesterday.
So, we opted for the known hot spot.
It was only 35 miles. Piece of cake.

The plan was to troll for a bit (near the hot spot), and see what we might drag over the gunwales, and then bottom fish if that proved slow. Seemed like a good plan.

I'll be the first to admit that this "fishery" is new to me. However, I have done sufficient Canyon fishing to be conversant in the practice. And bottom fishing is a universal exercise: get the bait to the bottom in front of the fish.

Chugging the 35 miles out took longer than expected given the higher than expected seas, and winds.
But, we made it in about 1 1/2 hours, and started trolling.
Almost right off, a reel started screaming, and I pulled in about a 4 foot barracuda.
Not what we were looking for, but as they say in the program: one fish at a time . . .

Well it turned out, that barracuda was the only fish we caught trolling.
We had a couple of hits - when the reel jumps for a second - but no other takers.

So, we decided to try bottom fishing.
Now, when you bottom fish, you generally drift.
In a perfect world, you set the boat up to drift over the "hot spot numbers" and try and stay in that location for as long as possible. Because, the hot spot can often be a very small and specific piece of real estate  - often no bigger than 20-30 feet wide, and 100 feet below you.
But, normally very doable - depending upon 2 factors: wind and waves.

The wind was blowing about 20 knots and the waves had built to about 4-5 foot.
Bottom line, we were drifting faster than Lindsay Lohan can drink. (that's pretty fast)
As such, we were only over the "hot spot" for some 30 seconds, before we shot past it.
When we were over them, we caught fish: small sea bass, a few snapper, and even a remora fish.
Those are the kind that "attach" themselves to other fish - sharks, and whales, etc.
I had never seen one - kinda cool. (and pretty big - about 3 feet long)

But, the excise was virtually futile as the boat was rocking so much, due to the fact that you are drifting sideways to the waves. This creates 2 problems: standing upright is increasing difficult, and the water comes riding up the side of the boat far more than normal.

It was the latter phenomenon that caused the engine problem we encountered when we decided to call it quits and start back home at 2:00.

The course back kept us sideways to the waves, which allowed the water to get into the air vents (for the engine) on the side of the boat (facing the waves). The resultant water caused a rather loud "POP" of the engine periodically. I can't adequately describe it to you, but I can say that all on board knew it was wrong, and that it potentially spelled trouble if we couldn't fix it.

Fixing engines sucks - especially if you are a mental midget mechanically. Which I am.
But, thankfully, we had a redneck on board.
Reminds me of one of my favorite bumper stickers:
"Everyone makes fun of Rednecks, till your engine breaks down".

So, we had to pull the engine cover off - which was no easy task in 5 foot seas, and diagnose the problem. Well Dr. Redneck, reckoned the water theory, which we all bought into - given the fact that the rest of us didn't have a clue about engines. Now, all we had to do was fix it . . .

Now ladies, I can tell you in ANY emergency, if there are men around, inevitably one of the solutions that will be offered is this: "Anybody got any duct tape?"
Well damn, we didn't have any duct tape - now what?

We took a plastic bag and stuck it thru the air vent, and pulled it across the vent and back in from the outside, and tied it on the inside. Basically, plugged up the air vent, as best we could to try and keep the water from coming in.
We put the engine cover back on, and headed on.
Feeling pretty proud of ourselves and our ingenuity to fix such a potentially drastic problem at sea.
'Cause , if we didn't, we were fairly screwed, as we were still more than 20 miles offshore, and the wind was not letting down.

We had about 5 minutes of relief until - "POP" again . . .
Shit.
Were we wrong about the water?
Was the engine in trouble?
None of the gauges indicated overheating, or loss of power.
But, it did only happen above a certain rpm level.
So, we decided to keep the rpms to below 2,000 - which meant that we would be traveling at about 10 knots.
And so we did - for the next 5 hours. (Wow, that was a deja vu)

So, on my day off, I spent 13 hours on the water, all for the love of fishing.
That's What I Did For Love.

Spence, on the other hand had a grand day in Charleston, and made dinner reservations that necessitated my sprinting from the boat to take a shower, and leave for dinner.

Shout out to Cap't Dave.
He stood tall in the face of some pretty heavy diversity.
None of the events of the day were his fault.
And, he handled himself and the situation admirably.

We were to a man very grateful for his successful captaining of the vessel.
We will fish again, 'cause that's what frinds do, and that's what we love.