CATEGORY: SAILING
PHOTO: FISH AND GAME

The spring before the summer that Bob and I sailed into Princess Louisa Inlet, the government of British Colombia had changed the laws about fishing.  From that day forward and forever, all NON British Colombians would have to buy a fishing license to fish in the salt waters of BC.  The cost was $25.00.  The penalty for not doing this was a thousand dollar fine and confiscation of the offender’s boat.

Bob had a fit.  He said, “I HAVE BEEN SAILING IN THESE WATERS FOR TWENTY YEARS AND I HAVE NEVER HAD TO BUY A FISHING LICENSE!!!!!!!  I’LL BE DAMNED IF I’LL BUY ONE NOW.  And he didn’t.  I offered to pay the $25.00 but he refused.  We still had rock cod for dinner.

When we were coming down Jervis inlet on our way from Princess Louisa, we stopped for lunch in a little rocky indent.  There were oysters on the rocks and we picked up six of them to have for dinner.  Oysters grew in that part of BC because the water was warmer there than it was further south.  Even taking one oyster was considered fishing.  We put them in a bucket in the cockpit.  That night it took us so long to find a place to anchor, the banks being steep, that it was dark before we were able to tie up for the night–a bow line to a tree and a stern anchor hastily placed–so we didn’t eat the oysters.

The next morning I had to get up early to use the head.  Glancing outside, I saw that we were adrift.  Our last night’s tie-up in the dark had not been adequate.  I wakened Bob and he decided to go around the next point to a place the chart showed might be safe to anchor.  He said, “Then let’s have oysters with scrambled eggs for breakfast.”

It was really early, about six o’clock.  There was no breeze.  Everything was as still as a “surround sight” painting.  The water was so glassy smooth that I was surprised the boat was not stuck in it, like being stuck in glue, but we motored around the point and anchored as planned.  I went below to start getting breakfast.  Right then a power boat came around the point from where we had been adrift.  It was just a smallish boat with a high cab in front.  Bob was standing in the cockpit watching it approach.  It came straight over to our boat.  As I watched it out the side of the pop-top moving slowly but steadily toward us, its wake trailing out behind on the silvery glass-smooth water through the dawn’s early light, mountains in the background, I thought, “How endearingly picturesque!  How serene!”

At that very moment, action exploded in the cockpit.  Bob grabbed the bucket with the oysters and threw them overboard on the opposite side from the approaching boat.  At the same time, the man on the boat yelled, “I SAW YOU DO THAT SIR!  I SAW YOU DO THAT!”  He jumped out of his boat onto our deck and into the cockpit looping his line over our cleat as he did so.  He was wearing a uniform.  Bob said he was just throwing out some laundry water.  Our visitor grabbed the bucket and looked inside.  There was one tiny limpet in the bottom of the bucket.  His face actually turned purple.  He screamed, “LAUNDRY, HELL”!!!!.   He got back in his boat.  As he was leaving, he yelled, “YOU GOD DAMNED AMERICANS!  I’LL GET YOU NEXT TIME .  DAMNED IF I WON’T.  DAMNED IF I WON’T”!!!!

Bob was always so cool in a crisis.  He was cool this time too, but when he came below, his hands were shaking.  A one thousand dollar fine and confiscation of his boat……..  He told me that, just as the boat had started to pull up along-side of ours, he saw the little metal plate on its side that said “Provincial Fish and Game.”  That is when the action started.  And that boat had come from the direction where we had been the night before.  If I hadn’t had to pee at five o’clock in the morning, and if we hadn’t been adrift, he would have caught us red handed.  

The next time we pulled into a port, Bob got a fishing license for $25.00.  It’s cheaper that way.