The fact that deep sea fishing is actually called deep sea fishing somehow didn't clue me in to the fact that I would be deep sea fishing. I am willing to accept complete blame for this error. This is because there may not be any other "sporting" activity you engage in that completely defines itself by its name. For instance if you had never played basketball, football, baseball, soccer, hockey, lacrosse, ping pong, or badminton, you would have no idea what the sports entailed or where they were played. This is not the case with deep sea fishing which entails going out to the deep sea and fishing and this makes my cluelessness completely unforgivable.

But in an effort to break down the complexities of this sport, I ha ve decided to clearly delineate what deep sea fishing in the Caribbean represents by examining each descriptive word.

Deep

This means really deep, as in there are miles of water beneath you. For some reason this is an extraordinarily difficult concept for me to grasp. The only way I can think of distance is by approximating how long it might take me to drive, run or walk somewhere. For instance, Detroit is 560 miles from Nashville and this takes me about eight hours to drive. Simple enough, but the thing about water is, you can't drive, run or walk underneath it. So I'm completely flummoxed by this concept. Also, and this was a bit of a hindrance for someone who lived on an island, but I don't really like being on the water when there is no visible land. This is not because I don't like the water, rather it is because I like the land. There is no doubt I would have been a horrible pirate, slave, or cabin boy.

Sea

Not sea as in, oh, there's the sea from the land, but sea as in, 2/3rds of the earth's surface is covered by water and if the boat sank you would die, sea. I really don't like this kind of sea. Plus, the fact that 2/3rds of the earth's surface is covered by water is just something I really don't care about. Sort of like if you told me that the earth represents a tiny fraction of the entire universe. Wow, that's great, but you know, I'm on the earth, terra firma, I don't really care about other places without gravity when chances are, I'm probably going to spend my entire life submitting to gravity's laws. Also, it's not like I understand everything on earth, in fact, I know very little about earth itsel f so why do I need to get all worked up about something so far away. Plus I feel like there are defined "sea people" (not mermaids) who enjoy pestering land people about how insiginificant their puny land is. These are the same people who always find a reason to tell you there are more sharks in the world than people. Usually this reason occurs when you are in the midst of the sea and there is supposedly miles of water beneath you teeming with animals that would like to kill you. In fact, the sharks would probably fight over you because if every shark wanted to eat every person, some sharks would still be hungry. These sea people never live on the sea either. Fine, you love the sea and all the lovely water that covers 2/3rds of the earth. Live on the water then. Wait...you can't because you need land.

Also, the sea has waves. And not waves that gently caress you while you sit on the beach and drink a Corona. No, big nasty, Perfect Storm waves. And the waves are worse when you are on a small boat, which we were. So another big lesson about the sea is that the waves aren't really much fun when you are actually out at sea. Anyway, the sea, where land is not, sea.

Fishing

I started fishing at a very young age, so I feel fairly comfortable with the concept. Aside from one errant cast at the age of seven when I inadvertantly cast my grandfather's cap into the river, I have been pretty flawless with the mechanics of fishing itself. But deep sea fishing isn't like any fishing I'd ever done before. This is because you are only fishing in the narrowest definition of fishing. Namely your boat captain baits, lowers, and sets all the fishing lures and you just sit in the sun and wait for him to yell that you've caught something. The whole thing seems sort of ridiculous, like you are pretend fishing. Once when I was six and not catching any fish while my grandfather was catching tons of fish I tried to hand him my rod so he could catch fish for me. My grandfather wouldn't do that because he said that I wasn't really fishing then. So I adopted that definition of fishing for most of my life. Turns out, I should have just been hiring a professional all along. So the fishing aspect of the sport consists of sitting in a boat and waiting to be told you have caught a fish. Basically that old maxim, "Give a man a fish and you have fed him for a day; Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime" is completely untrue. It should be modified to our times like so, "Pay a man to fish so you can have a beer on the boat."

Now that the basic schemata of deep sea fishing is laid out, here are some highlights from my trip out to sea with my friend Justin, his father, and Justin's future brother-in-law.

1. The captain of our boat informs us that it will take about forty-five minutes to get where we want to fish. The next forty-five minutes of boat-riding is the bumpiness equivalent of going one-hundred miles on the Oregon Trail in 1842.

2. We come to a merciful stop and everyone realizes that the swells on the boat are the height of small apartment buildings. I know what the three men in the tub felt like.

3. Our captain fishes for us.

This is our captain's ass. Somehow I took this...insert gay joke here.

4. Justin throws up.

5. I am too sick to drink beer. Instead I try to avert my gaze from the sun that is beating down on my head.

6. Justin throws up again and inquires of the captain whether he has any suggestions for how to cure nausea. The captain demurs and then finally suggests a Heineken.

Justin...the seasickness was not, I repeat, not, caused by the sleeveless shirt.

7. Justin's future brother-in-law catches a shark. Yep, a legitimate shark. We bring the shark to the side of the boat and the captain yanks him aboard. The shark is 3.5 feet long and later we will eat him.

   
Eating him seemed sort of like rubbing it in.

8. Justin throws up the Heineken.

9. I am called to the back of the boat as we have hooked a barricuda. As I am reeling in the barricuda a huge shark appears behind the barricuda, attacks and eats my barricuda, in the process hooking himself to my rod . The captain taps me and says, "Look at all that blood in the water." The shark dives and drags me periolously close to the edge of the boat.

10. The captain says, "Don't worry, if you think he's going to take you off the boat, we can cut the line."

The shark prepares to drag me into the azure waters.

11. I want to cut the line.

12. The shark and I wage war for what seems like a long time until I am on the verge of throwing up from nausea.

13. After a tagteam effort we pull the shark up alongside the boat. He has gaping jaws and is over six feet long. Our boat seems perilously equipped to handle sharks of this size. The captain cuts loose the shark.

14. Justin throws up again. I relocate to the front of the boat and focus on the swells and the fact that at any moment, I too, might throw up.

15. In my head, I promise never to go deep sea fishing again. Also, I say thanks to my immigrant forefathers who crossed the Atlantic Ocean in steerage. I would have never made it.

You know how occasionally you see a picture of yourself and wonder how you have the strength to go forth in public...this is that picture.