THE SOOTHSAYER WAS WRONG
We awoke to rolling. Everything clattering and rolling. The fo’c’sle smelled like stale, sour socks, and fish. It smelled bad to us, who had been living on the boat for three months now and were acclimated. We were informed at our first waking moment that the 12 volt belts had broken. Up the ladder into semi darkness. Dark enough out still to bang and ricochet into corners and walls in the swell and dim. The unsecured door of the fridge flies open and the entire contents are dumped onto the galley floor, where they roll and tumble away. No one looked each other in the eye. Jaws were clenched. It was tense, the morning was distinctly tinged with misery, a very clear feeling of over it.
Chucks coffee thermos spills, half full and a barked “Fuck!” cracks through the entire boat. No one winces, no one reacts. Just wait. Rising sun and restored visibility and the marching by of hours smooths over anger and hot nerves. The day’s passing, another day’s passing, the days are passing…
We rolled and lurched around in waters we fished a month ago. The lack of enthusiasm, the near assurance that today will also not be fishy is conferred to this day in August. Tired eyes scanned the horizon for jumpers, for any sign that this day in this “above excellent” season was going to be anything more than mediocre. A wash. A waste.
Men kept talking about the “giant ball of fish”. The hordes seen by spotter planes off the coast. They had been talking about this ball of fish for a month now. The old Mexican on the Lake Bay said three weeks ago that he felt the fish coming. In his 35 years, he’s “never been wrong”. How am I supposed to continue to believe in mysticism when I live the wrongness of his mystic predictions every day?
This day marked all time low morale. A last minute crisis of faith led us to run three hours to get to Kendrick. We went from mediocre fishing to very bad fishing.
The gamble yielded bad results again. Lumpy seas and a hand full of fish and the biggest red jellies I’ve ever seen. Five pounds apiece, size of frozen pizzas, impossible to kick through false deck boards. Hot as hell. I said, “well this is an all time low". Five minutes later Allie found a sea lice wedged in her teeth. We laugh. New all time low.
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