Aqua man

The old axiom of “There’s never a cop around when you need one” can be paraphrased into many permutations… one of which is “You never have a camera with you when you need one”. With that thought in mind, let’s go fishing.

This morning, Joan, Phil, Margaret and I arose shortly after the rising sun and headed out to catch an evenings meal worth of finned delicacies. White puffy clouds drifted slowly though the mid Florida coastal sky as we pushed off from the dock behind Joan and Phil’s house and headed out into the intracoastal waterway that runs the length of the state. After quickly finding “the perfect spot” (all fishermen know one) we dropped the anchor and Phil, Joan and Margaret started skewering shrimp onto the hooks of three fishing poles. All baited up, the fishing frenzy then began. Well, … sort of.

Phil has been fishing for most his life while Joan, though not to the extent of Phil, never-the-less has done her fair share in pursuit of the gilled critters. And then there’s Margaret: never fished a day in her life. Well, I suppose you now have a pretty good idea of where this is going… right? Total catch of the day: five fish…. four by Margaret, one by Joan and zippo by Phil. Don’t it figure?

Actually, I shouldn’t say that Phil didn’t get anything at all. But he had to resort to rather unorthodox methods to land his catch. Who knew that once attached to poles, fishing reels can come off and fall into the water? Well, while Joan was in the process of “Finding Nemo”, the reel on her pole somehow came loose and went kerplunk into the briny deep. And evidently those reels can be somewhat pricy. With visions of dollar signs dancing in his head, Phil wasn’t going to let a few feet of water cause him to have to revisit the local sporting goods store to buy a replacement reel. So, out of the pants came the wallet, the comb, the keys….off came the shoes and shirt and over the edge of the boat into the water our intrepid aqua man went.

Oh,… did I mention that this was taking place in Florida… where just about any body of water bigger than a bird bath has a high probability of having an alligator or crocodile in it? While we all kept a keen lookout for beady little eyes skimming quickly across the water toward the boat, Phil made several dives into the murky depths in pursuit of the errant line winder. Finally, like King Arthur’s “lady of the lake” rising slowly up out of the water with the sword Excalibur in her hand, Phil’s arm finally broached the surface with the recalcitrant reel in hand, gleaming brightly in the morning sunlight.

Unfortunately, although this will no doubt become a point of occasional jovial conversation far into the future, there will be no photographic evidence with which to chuckle over. Figuring “How exciting can a two hour fishing expedition be?”, I didn’t have my camera with me. I now know better.