Gone Fishing

The other day I was walking down the sandy street which is the main thoroughfare on the tiny island of Caye Caulker, Belize.  It's lined with stalls full of T-shirts and trinkets, wood carvings and what not, and vendors calling out to the sunburned tourists passing by.

Within 90 seconds of stepping off the ferry, 3 guys offered me accommodations, 2 guys in golf carts offered to transport me to my accommodations, 2 ladies offered me handwoven blankets and another guy promised the choicest ganja in all of Central America.


After politely declining their solicitations, I was approached by a guy with an offer he was absolutely certain I couldn't refuse... a sweet deal on a deep sea fishing excursion. 


His face fell when I told him that I associate fishing with Eternal Damnation.

My grandfather used to take my younger brother and me fishing in a bass boat which he pulled on a trailer with a Louisiana license plate that bore the motto “Sportman’s Paradise”.

Paradise was exactly what I longed for as we sat in the blazing summer heat wearing long sleeves and jeans to protect us from sunburn.  The oppressive temperature was magnified by the aluminum frying pan in which we were sitting, and the reflective surface of the lake,  only inches away, it beckoned us with the promise of cool relief.  Water, water everywhere…but for fishing only.  Not swimming.

We had to sit as still as statues, watching in tortured boredom as our red and white plastic floaters bobbed on the surface of the murky lake. Time slowed to a geological pace. After an eon or so, one of us would get a nibble and the floater would be pulled below the surface.  


Jerking on our bamboo pole and then feeling the line go slack, we invariably hoisted our hook from the water to see it glinting in the scorching sun…baitless. The catfish were simply toying with us. If, during these nano-seconds of grappling with what we imagined to be leviathans from the deep, we accidentally shuffled our feet
 or let out an exclamation of excitement, we received a heavy sigh 
and/or a reprimand for frightening the fish.  What fun!

When we finally abandoned our futile efforts and headed back to the green Ford LTD that had been baking in the scorching sun all afternoon, we had to endure a 2 hour nausea-inducing ride that was much like the seventh circle of hell in Dante’s Inferno.  Once we got home, we’d sit around in the back yard swatting mosquitoes while grand dad fired up a bubbling cauldron of oil, followed by a dinner of fried fillets full of tiny bones...washed down with iced tea, the house wine of the South.

Afterwards, there’d be the interminable wait while grand dad poured rock salt into the ice-cream maker and hand-cranked it for an eternity. Even as a child it baffled me why someone who was born before electricity was in wide-spread use wouldn't want to take full advantage of it. Long after dark and the fireflies were headed home to bed, we’d have a taste of the gooey, runny white concoction which many people nostalgically remember as “home made vanilla ice cream”. 

All of that to say that when someone invites me on a fishing trip, I’d rather sign up for 8 hours stuck in an elevator with an insurance salesman followed by a colonoscopy.