1 Sunshine Hunter (15 page)

I spoke up right away
and asked, “Where are the life vests?” Everyone laughed, but I was serious. I was secretly afraid of being on large bodies of water. I was a strong swimmer, but that experience had been confined to local lakes and swimming pools. I had watched enough Discovery Channel to know there were some sea creeps I didn’t want any part of. Moray eels and sea snakes made my skin crawl. Lion fish and stingrays were dangerous, and I certainly didn’t want anybody to have to pee on me if I was stung by a jellyfish. And the sharks! I wasn’t going to be eaten by a great white. I didn’t know if the Gulf had all of these particular sea creeps, but I didn’t want to find out either.

Ryan smiled at me and opened a cupboard off the deck on the port side. It was filled with vests. “You can wear one i
f you want to, but we find most people just set one on the deck. If anything happens, and you feel you need a vest, you can put one on then.”

I grabbed two.

Ryan showed us the fishing equipment which was set up at the back of the boat. There were two swivel fishing chairs bolted to the deck. To sit in a chair, you straddled the fishing pole holder so the rod and reel were between your legs as you landed
the big one
. The reels were huge. Ryan told us each reel held 90’ of line. Johnny promptly sat down in one of the chairs.

We were ready to leave. Captain Jorje turned the engines over. I might not know much about boats, but thanks to my dad, I did know somet
hing about engines, and it sounded as if one of the engines had a miss. We pulled away from the dock.

It couldn’t have been a more gorgeous day for going ou
t onto the Gulf. There was a small chop to the sparkling blue-green waters. The sun didn’t feel hot at all with the breeze and the light spray of the water. It almost made me forget my troubles. I definitely felt more relaxed.

“Where’s your hat?” Ryan asked me.

“I didn’t have one to bring,” I told him. “Do I need one?”

“If you don’t want sunstroke, you do,” he said. Darby shot
a look my way with raised eyebrows as if to say, “
See, you weren’t wearing a hat at the boat races and you got sunstroke
.” Ryan continued, “The air feels cool when the boat is moving, but the sun is just as intense as any other day.” He entered the cabin, and resurfaced a minute later with a white bucket hat with the words
Shark Trek
emblazoned across the front. Oh my gosh, it was a Gilligan hat! I was out for a three-hour tour with a skipper and his first mate, on a boat from Jaws, with an engine that wasn’t running right. This was not a good sign. I pulled the hat down on my head. Darby couldn’t contain himself at seeing the look on my face and the hat on my head, and he burst into laughter.

“How far out do we have to go before we start fishing,” Johnny asked. He was comfortable and using his normal voice now.

“About twenty miles,” Ryan said.

Darby settled into the chair next to Johnny, and they
quickly became immersed in conversation. I stood at the rail and enjoyed the breeze. Ryan sidled up to me. “It’s really pretty out here, isn’t it?”

“It is
,” I agreed with him. “I can see why people want to make a living on the water. Have you been with Captain Jorje for a long time?”

“Only about six months
,” he said. “I worked on the Atlantic side on a couple of different boats for two years, but when my family moved over here, I signed on with the
Shark Trek
.”

“Which do you like better, the gulf or the ocean?” I asked him.

“Oh, definitely the gulf,” he said enthusiastically. “The waves aren’t as high, there’s hardly ever any pitching or rolling, and I don’t have to worry anymore about The Bermuda Triangle.”

“The Bermuda Triangle? Really?” I asked surprised. “Were you ever in it?”

“No, but we were close sometimes. And I saw things that scared me out of my wits,” he said with a visible shudder.

“Like what?” I prodded him.

“Mostly strange lights,” he said. “And the gauges on the boat would act weird. Sometimes the radio would go out for no reason. But I was scared the most on the day we saw two suns. We couldn’t get back to shore fast enough on that day.”

A
chill went down my spine. I looked around to be sure the life vests were still on the deck where I had put them. The Bermuda Triangle gave me the same feeling sea creeps did, and I wanted nothing to do with it either. It felt great to be out on the open water, but it was also unsettling. Such a large body of water, and we were on such a small boat by comparison. I appreciated the beauty of the gulf, but I knew it could also be deadly.

Ryan went to get the bait for the fishing poles. I sat down on the built-in bench on the starboard side, put my elbows back on the
rail and relaxed with my face tilted to the sun. If I would have had a pillow, I probably would have gone to sleep.

The sound of the engines changed. I sat up and listened. One of the engines was either shut off or had stopped working. Ryan came out of the cabin with a bucket in hand. “Engine’s out again,” he yelled up to Captain Jorje.

“I know,” came down the captain’s exasperated response.

“What’s up with that, Ryan?” I asked.
I couldn’t keep the concern out of my voice.

“We’ve been having trouble with one of the engines for a little over a week
now. The captain keeps fiddling with the timing, but I think it’s just old, and he needs a new engine.”

“Is that ok
we only have one engine?” I asked. I started to hear the jaws theme in my head again.

“Sure. We can get back on one,” Ryan
said smiling. “Nothing to worry about.”

Easy for him to say
, I thought.

It took
exactly 45 minutes to reach the spot Captain Jorje had chosen for us. He let the engine idle and came down from the bridge. “Let’s get these poles in the water!” he said excitedly.

“What are we fishing for?” I asked caught up in his excitement. “Marlin? Ooh, I would love to see a swordfish!”

Captain Jorje looked at me with disdain and said, “This is strictly a shark vessel. We’re fishing for shark today.” My jaw dropped.

Ryan
removed the lid from the bucket, and I saw it was filled with bloody, cut up fish. Fish guts!

Darb
y swung around in his chair, gave me a big grin, and said, “Exciting, isn’t it?”

“Whooo-eeee!” Johnny let out a whoop. He was the exc
ited one. “Let’s get one I can mount and put on my wall.”

The Captain and Ryan each baited a hook, cast a line, and set the poles into the holders on the chairs. Ryan used a scoop to throw the cut up fish, the chum, into the water behind the boat. In my opinion, it was disgusting. Captain Jorje went to the bridge and pulled the boat several yards ahead of the chum.

Johnny and Darby were settled in their chairs, ready and waiting for sharks to take their bait. They waited. And they waited. And they waited.

Today was not going to be the day for sharks. We had been on the water for nearly two hours now. Most of my time had been spent sitting on the bench daydreaming and trying not to doze off. At the moment, I was standing at the rail,
still enjoying the beauty of the day, and looking at the other activity on the water.

There were two other fishing boats in reason
ably close proximity to ours. One appeared to be anchored, the other was moving away from us. There was one speedboat in the distance off the starboard side. I supposed there would be more activity on the water on the weekend.

Johnny yanked me back to reality when he let out an exuberant, “We got us a big one!” The line was flying off the reel. Something b
ig had taken the bait and was running with it. Captain Jorje stayed at the helm to maneuver the boat, Ryan was beside Johnny to offer him assistance, and Darby stood behind Johnny do his own whooping with words of encouragement.

Me? I was slinking back to the doorway of the cabin. I was ready to bolt inside and shut the door. There was no way I was getting eaten by a great white shark. I picked up one of the life vests and
clutched it to my chest while I stood in the cabin doorway and watched the three guys try to reel in the monster.

It
only took about 20 minutes to wear the shark down and bring it up to the side of the boat. Captain Jorje came down to assist Ryan. Johnny had been serious about keeping and mounting the shark, so it had to be killed before bringing it aboard.

The captain
brought out a bang stick which is basically a shot gun shell on a stick. He used it on the shark, then he and Ryan used gaff hooks and rope to secure the shark in the water. “Everybody stand back,” yelled Ryan. “She’s comin’ aboard.” Johnny and Darby moved back to stand beside me. The Captain and Ryan hoisted the shark onto the deck. It landed with a loud thud and a crack.

“She’s just a little tiger shark,” said the captain.

A little one?
The shark was taking up almost one whole side of the deck. Its tailfin was at the back of the boat; its jaws were facing us.

“What do you think she weighs?” asked Johnny. He was all smiles, and Darby was clapping him on the back. It had to be a guy thing, because I was completely horrified by it all.

“She looks to be about 8 feet and probably 300 pounds,” said the captain. This brought more whooping from Johnny and Darby. The captain addressed the three of us and said, “Now listen up. Even though this shark has been shot and is out of the water, she’s still dangerous. She’ll flop around for a while, and if you get in the vicinity of her teeth, she’ll bite ya. So watch your step.”

There was a lot of water around the shark. Ryan moved it with the g
aff hook, and we could see a board had splintered on the old deck when the shark landed. Water was coming in. Not a geyser, but it was coming in steady.

Johnny’s drama queen was instantly back, “Eeeeee!” he shrieked. “We’re sinking! We’re all gonna die!” He was hopping from
one foot to the other with his hands flapping in front of his face.

I looked at Darby wide-eyed, panic starting to well up inside me. It was one thing to have a life ve
st. It was another to know you might end up in the water with large amounts of chum calling for sharks like a siren.

Darby put his arm around me and spoke calmly, “It’s going to be ok. We’re not going to sink. These
guys are experienced, and they’ll know what to do.”

Yep, that was Darby. Logical and always the optimist.

“Don’t panic anybody,” said the Captain. He shot Johnny a stern look. “I’ll send a mayday just in case, but we’ll start right back to shore. There’s plenty of time to get back before this is a real problem.”

The Captain went to the bridge to use the radio. Ryan was starting to bail water from
the back corner of the boat while keeping one eye on the shark.

“Ryan!” the Captain bellowed from up above. “Run down and check the fuses. The radio’s out again.”

“Eeeeee! We’re sinking,” Johnny shrieked. “The radio is out. We’re all gonna die!” He ran, arms flapping, to the front of the boat.

It was at that moment a flare landed in the water behind the boat. Another landed in the water on the port side. Then another. The captain let a string of swear words fly from the bridge. Darby motioned for me to step inside the cabin out of harm’s way, and he ran up to the bridge to see what was happening. Ryan ran past me from the engine room and up to the bridge as well. The captain started another string of swear words.

I stepped into the cabin. My eyes adjusted to the dimly lit room, and I could see it was a small resting/storage space with a table and banquette seating around the edges. There was a small doorway to a lower area which I assumed was the engine room.

I looked out th
e starboard window and saw a speedboat had moved into a perpendicular position a short distance from our boat. Was this the same speedboat I had seen earlier? There was so much excitement with the shark, I hadn’t noticed if the boat had left the area or not. I couldn’t see who was manning the boat, but I could guess who it was.

Another flare came from the speedboat. This one hit the port side of the deck wall and stuck. The old, neglected wood immediately started to burn. The boat was now on fire.

Johnny’s shrieks were much louder now, and they were mixed with crying. Darby was yelling from the bridge, “Susan! Susan! Get up here!”

I wanted to put my vest on. I looked for the armholes, but all of the buckles were buckled and I would have to undo them. The boat shifted. What was that? How could the boat shift? I was panicking as I could see the fire was getting bigger. My fingers didn’t want to work, and I dropped the vest. My feet wouldn’t move. Darby yelled again, “Susan! Susan!” I could hear the panic in his voice. I reached down and grabbed the vest.

I stopped for a second in the cabin doorway and saw that water was now pouring onto the deck below the fire. The back end of the boat was completely underwater now. I stepped out of the cabin onto the wet deck just as the boat shifted yet again taking more of the back end under water. The movement set me off balance. I fell on my backside and was sliding fast, feet first toward the shark, who was now half in and half out of the boat.