FISHING THE INDIAN OCEAN WITH MY NEW PARTNER RON

Ron has decided on this trip to join me in a fishing charter. I am so excited. Finally we are going to do something I like. We rent our boat, load our gear, load a fisherman and his helper. Now this was not a large boat. Maybe an 18 footer, but it did have as much motor as it would carry. We leave the dock and head out to the edge of a reef, about 400 meters offshore. The driver just cuts the motor to idle and floats around. Great, maybe we are going to fish right here inside the reef. Hey I can handle that, the water was calm, blue and clear. Break out the gear.

Not so fast! I see a huge roller approaching us from the other side of the breaker, and when it breaks on and over the reef with a loud crash, our driver hits his throttle and with a wild eye he heads right for the reef. This wave hits the reef, rears up about 10 feet above the reef and crashes over it. At precisely that time we hit that tsunami, right in the teeth, and are vaulted up over the reef on the top of this wave. My heart has stopped, I have to give myself CPR to restart it. Ron’s eyes are as big as saucers. “What the hell” comes to mind.

Anyway we are now in the Indian Ocean and ready to fish. “Hold on,” Ron says, “where is the fishing boat?” “What fishing boat?” “You know, the big one where I can sit on the deck and watch tv while you fish”. Oops, I think she pictured us fishing off a yacht while she ate bonbons and sipped sodas. Well do I have some bad news for Ron. Once she realizes that she is on the fishing boat, she then declares, “OK I’ve had enough”, “I’m tired can we go see mom now?”

Once again, I have invested $300 US in a half day fishing trip. That was a lot of money in those times. There is no way that I’m going back. So I whine “come on you have to catch a fish”. She reluctantly agrees. We catch a few small bonito and a couple other type of local game fish. All small but pretty impressive to us. All of a sudden Ron’s rod starts jumping around and line is burning off it. Her reel is making a loud whirring sound.

The fisherman says that’s a tuna. The line stops and he hands the rod and reel to Ron and straps her into the fisherman’s chair. She is pretty excited, but still pissed at not fishing off the deck of the Queen Mary. Well the tuna heads for the bottom and parks itself in about 200 feet of water. Ron is pulling on that rod but cannot move that fish off the bottom. She then says “ok dad you bring it in for me”. “Nope” says I “you have to land your own fish or it doesn’t count”. Bravely she perseveres, pulling, straining, grunting and shooting me those (wait til I tell mom) looks.

She works at it for a while and gets that fish about 10 feet off the bottom. It then just goes back down and resumes its position. Another 15 minutes, another 25 foot gain and then another return to the bottom. I am not sure but I now think she is more pissed at the fish than me and has become determined to land that badboy in the boat. After another 60 minutes, that fish has had enough, or feels sympathy for whoever is on the other end of the line, and starts to rise towards the surface. My god she finally lands that fish it was about a 30 pound tuna.

The first words out of her mouth, while I am jumping around and “high-fiving” everyone is “Dad can we go back now”. Geezus! We stayed a while longer and caught a small sail fish, a couple more small tuna and an assortment of bonito. Back over the reef we go and Ron is finally free of her penance. I suspected that I would have a hard time convincing her to return with me for another fishing trip. The fishermen kept the fish (and later he would take them to the market for sale), and we returned to our hotel. A great day in my life!