The Southseas

"The boy was back now with the sardines and the two baits wrapped in a newspaper and they went down the trail to the skiff, feeling the pebbled sand under their feet, and lifted the skiff and slid her into the water." Old Man and Sea

Today they had the full day ahead of them.  There were some excuses given as to why they would not meet at the Pointe for breakfast and then stay for two hours at the small waterpark near the main pool.  They might not make lunch, either, for sea trout were trophy fish and they were fickle.  Sea trout might eat any number of things, depending upon the weather and how secluded a hole they were able to reach. "Some days I have seen them go after crustaceans, sea worms, little sandeels." The grandfather would not have known this himself, but for the captain Ossie of Southseas who had been born and raised in these magnificent waters.  He had once taken the grandfather out into the islands and he watched the Captain that day try ten different baits and in varying levels of water.  When the captain finally landed one, it was off of the simplest initial bait, the crustacean and he remembered how widely he smiled as he pulled in the three and a half pound trout with such large teeth that it was not certain at first that it was a trout.  "We will begin in the shallows wading in, fishing from land, then we can make our way to our boats, you see." Lily knew, of course, without saying, that they would reach the strait again and go diving.  But it was their secret and nobody could know what lay a mere five feet under the surface there.  As they launched that morning, lifejackets secure, paddles in hand, lunches and waters stowed, well lathered by sun screen, they had, in that instant, become now part of the very place, the sea, and they would catch a trout by crustacean and smell the briny rainbow skin of the great fish and skin it and scale to bring back to a fire and cook it as over a spit.  There were the beach days, when the wind carried over them a certain smell of the sea and of tanning oil; there, the voices of the beach carried over them. From behind them, on those beach days, gliding over the trees, here in mid-April, you could hear the slow guttural squawk of he American White Pelican fly on its way to the Ding Darling Preserve just up the coast. But these days were of visitors; the days of the kayak and the island, moving toward the wild fish, and then finally diving down into the blue haze of the sea seeking relics of the 17th century, well, these were of history, of time itself. To put ones hand on such things was not something you could merely write home about, but they might shape the way you see things.  "Yes, the day will be fine today," he said, and watched as Lily, who knew just where to go, rushed across the slender strait to the Caya and nosed her red kayak as deep as she could into the smooth brown sand.