My good friends from Spokane, Ben and Aarow Eastham invited me to come with them on a fishing trip in Asbury Park, NJ. Ben is doing medical school at UW in Seattle and they were out in NJ this week visiting Aarow's family. I agreed to come along on the trip and expected a great time. Let's first say that the image I had in my mind was not the same as reality. There are only three other times that I can remember being on a boat in some sort of salty water: Bremerton to Seattle ferry through the Puget Sound, Staten Island Ferry through New York Harbor, and a party boat in Puerto Vallarta that took several BYU students snorkeling in Bahia de las Banderas. I had never noticed before, but these are all quite protected areas, meaning the waves don't get that big. This will be important to note later in the story.
We boarded the boat at about 7pm and found our spots near the back. The boat is 120 feet long and has fishing rods lining the edge from the front to the back. People continued to trickle in until there were about 50 passengers and 10 crew. This was a rough crowd. The phrase curse like a sailor is absolutely true. I'm surprised we also don't use phrases like drink, smoke and smell like a sailor in our conversations because they would be equally true. The picture below shows some of the people we rode with. You can probably guess that the girl in the center was not completely sure what her boyfriend, shown at left, was getting her into. The other picture shows the chum that they throw overboard to attract fish. It is made of pieces of other fish.
The boat left at about 8 and we cruised due east for about an hour. The open ocean is not a friendly place. (Yes I did just sound like a pirate there). The swells were between 5 and 7 feet and as we kept cruising several people in the boat were getting sick. On man starting chumming (which is sailor talk for barfing) into the garbage can inside the cabin. The crew quickly directed him to the edge of the boat to save the rest of us from watching. About 1/2 hour into the ride I started to feel a little bit of an upset stomach, but nothing more than a long winding car ride. We finally stopped and I felt a bit better after that. Once we stopped the fishing immediately got underway and people started pulling in fish right away. I caught one not more than 10 minutes after dropping my line in the water. A picture of my prize catch is shown below. Note the size of my foot (size 10) and the relative size of the fish. It put up a good fight as I reeled it in.
After I caught the fish things quickly deteriorated. I didn't feel so great and told Aarow I was going to take a break inside. The moment I walked inside the cabin the sea sickness set in and I spent the next 3 hours either bent over the edge of the boat depositing a half digested Subway sandwich and diet coke into the ocean or laying inside the boat with eyes closed and stomach rolling. I did manage to make it 15 or so minutes somewhere in there where I caught another fish. However, that respite was short lived. I wasn't alone since I saw most of the other passengers chumming at some point during the trip, but I do think I won for most frequent barfing. At about 1am they reeled in the last of the fish and started for the shore. It amazed me that immediately after pulling into the harbor I felt completely fine. I think I'll stick to land-based activities for the near and distant future.
No comments:
Post a Comment