Remember the Boat Times (Part 1 of 2)
PART 1 of 2
So about a year a go, some of you will recall, I put up a post (part 1 & part 2) regarding the unusual places you sometimes find yourself through BMX and it described how I ended up on an unbelievable fishing trip up in Northern B.C. Well recently I got the opportunity to revisit that epic adventure and didn’t hesitate to take it on again.
Our port of launch was Port Edward just south of Rupert in Northern B.C. The first night we stayed in Port as we arrived too late to safely set sail and find a decent place to anchor over night. Seemed like a prime opportunity to lubricate the gullet with fine ale and skulk around in the dark, camera in hand. This pic is a pretty typical scene at Port Edward, no luxury yachts, or skantily clad bikini tarts frolicking on fine yellow cedar decking. Just good ol’ fashioned workin’ men on ol’ fashion working vessels, plain ‘n simple. Mind you ,with the amount of booze we brought along a barnacle was as fair as a sea maiden by the end of most nights.
Next day we set out for open ocean. This is a time of contradiction. What do I mean by that, well… you are full of excitement and wonder for the upcoming adventure but things are slow; the boat moves slowly, the destination is far and once you are off shore there is not much to see or do. It’s just you, the open ocean, a shitload of beer and the concrete diesel emitting work horse beneath you. All the same the anticipation builds and we all sat for hours waiting to see a whale breech or take a snap of an eagle picking off a fish. Photographic gems await those with patience, Beer awaits us without it.
Patience = 1 / Beer = 4
Somewhere along the way we thought we might try our hand at fishing, well, trawling for salmon to be precise. Chad Jones here is a master behind the real of a rod and had no problem bringing up this Koho Salmon. As you can see by his casual demeanor Chad was not on any performance enhancing substances. In fact Chad was on quite the opposite of performance enhancing substances giving our Salmon friend here an advantage.
The U.N. Fisheries Commission can sleep safely knowing that this Koho was not only organically, sustainably caught but also given an unfair advantage by Chad’s sobriety at the time. With criteria like that you might say that Chad is actually improving the quality of fish ‘left’ in the ocean. Thanks Chad!
If we’re going to talk about fisherman then Captain Jack deserves a mention. He’s a salty old sea dog with a ton of wise old sayings and various ‘takes’ on life that will have you wetting your Y-fronts with laughter. Jack can spot out fishing spots like a beagle can sniff out a fox. Without fail he would stop the boat and yell “Well, are you fishing?” and everyone would drop what they were doing and cast their lines. You’d be picking up fish in no more than 5 minutes and if it took a second more than that he’d climb back into the Capp’ns seat and steer us to the next fishing hole and guaranteed you’d hit them there.
Jack likes to stir things up a bit like all pirate Captains do. He’d be asking the young guys about their significant others and say things like “You get them tits in sink yet boy?!” and follow it up with “You do the dishes ONCE… …and you’re F#@$%D!”. He always says it with a grin on his face, peering sideways in his peripherals to see if any of the ladies on the boat caught an earful. Jack’s an old fashioned fella but don’t let his dry chauvinist wit fool you, according to local gossip he’s a real ladies man and a bit of a push over for his old lady.
None of the fine ladies on the Cantamara took any notice of Jack’s shenanigans. One of these fine women is Debbie Jones, a veteran ocean going lass with a heart of gold. In last years post I tarnished her reputation and implied that she had caught no decent fish (which was untrue) and this year she was determined to put me in my place and she did! Debbie caught the biggest fish this trip and a Halibut no less. These puppies are known to give a good fight thanks to their broad powerful bodies and this one is no small fry weighing in at 45lbs. That’s approximately 4-6 BBQ’s with 4-8 people (in metric measurements).
At the end of a day of fishing we would pull into a calm body of water either in a cove or between a string of luscious green islands. We would take in the last hours of sun and throw back a few last beers before we cracked open a bottle of rum to soothe our weary bones and gullets at the end of a hard earned day.
