CATEGORY: SAILING
PHOTO: HAPPY ME WITH LING COD

After I met Bob, we spent as much time as possible sailing.  Bob kept his boat in Port Townsend, the ideal taking-off place for the northern islands, the first archipelago being the San Juan’s.  Just north of them are the Canadian Gulf Islands.  Then, about two thirds of the way up Vancouver Island, is another group of islands in an area called Desolation Sound.  I thought it must have been named “Desolation” because the many islands there are so steep and high and tightly packed that a sailor could get lost in the maze of channels and wander forever without fresh water or a place to anchor, just like “The Man Who Never Returned.”  And I was right.  I discovered that Captain Vancouver had named it Desolation Sound because “There wasn’t a single prospect that was pleasing to the eye.”  He must have been there in the fog and rain.  We were there in the sunny summer time.  It was very pleasing to the eye!

Ironically, beyond the San Juan’s, the water gets warmer as you go north—that is, until you reach the only outlet to the Pacific, Johnstone Straight, just north of Desolation Sound.  Johnstone is so narrow that the cold ocean currents can’t encroach.  The water south of it lazes there, sloshing back and forth with the tides, and gets heated by the long northern days of hot summer sun.  And there is a lot of sun: the coast of British Colombia south of Desolation is called the “Sunshine Coast.”

The main stopping place in Desolation Sound was Refuge Cove, where there was a store, a gas dock, and a free dock for boaters.  Bob liked to spend days at a time there.  It was a good place to do little maintenance things on the boat.  

When we were sailing we ate fish for dinner almost every day.  We ate mostly rock cod because they were so easy to catch and so delicious.  Just drop a baitless hook down to underwater rocks and presto!  One apiece made a meal.  In Desolation Sound, the water was too deep for underwater rocks, so there were no Rock Cod.  Instead, there were Ling Cod.  

Late one afternoon Bob said we would take the dingy and go around a nearby point and try to catch a Ling Cod for dinner.  Our dingy looked like a toy; it was only about 5ft. long, flat bottomed and flat nosed.  

It barely held the two of us and could only be rowed with very short comical strokes because our knees were in the way.  At the designated place, advised by the fishing gurus at the Refuge store, Bob cast out a line–no bait required: just a flasher.  It didn’t take long for him to hook a fish. It was a Ling Cod alright, as clearly seen through the crystal clear water, but each time he got its head above water it started to strenuously object.  Other than rock cod, which were pitifully easy, I had never caught a fish in my life, so Bob patiently explained to me that it was necessary to reel them in and then let them swim away until they were tired.  It was then possible to use a net.  

Bob did the reel-in, reel-out thing until it was a draw as to who was getting tired, but every time he tried to get it out of the water, it still preformed aquatic gymnastics with untiring zeal.  Finally, on one such try, the fish got away.  That was the end of that day’s fishing.

The next day, Bob gave me the fishing pole and told me to go to the same place and CATCH A FISH!  Orders!  So off I went in the dinghy with wind-up-toy strokes, dip, dip, dip, to the same little cove.  I kept casting the line out and pulling it in.  Nothing.  After an excruciatingly long time, I gave up.  As I was reeling in the line for the last time, I saw a fish on the end of it. Wooou!  I had not even felt a tug, but there it was!  And it was BIG, much bigger than the one Bob had hooked.  I remembered that I must reel it in and let it out over and over again.  Which I did–over and over and over–and over.  Every time I tried to lift its nose out of the water, it started to fight.  I remembered what had happened to Bob’s fish.  I knew that if this one got away, Bob would never believe I had caught this big fish!  It would be just another “one that got away.”  

So I patiently persisted, but just like the night before, it was not the fish who got tired, so——-finally——I put the pole in the dingy with its end hanging over the bow, kept it in place with my foot, and started rowing.  I wasn’t going to take any more chances; I had to show this fish to Bob.  Dip, dip, dip, I went, back to Refuge Cove.  As I got near our boat, I met two young boys who were paddling around the harbor in a normal sized dingy.  They said, “Did you catch anything”?   I didn’t say a word; I just pointed into the clear water.  They both saw the fish at the same time.  They both got Barney Google eyes at the same time.  Then, at the same time, they both shouted, “We’ll land it for you!!!!”   I shook my head.  I said, “ Nope!  I have to get this to my husband or he won’t believe it.”

Bob had no problem getting MY fish into the cockpit   It was 29” inches long. We saved enough for a couple of dinners and gave the rest away since we had no cooling.  It wasn’t nearly as good as rock cod.

Shortly afterward, as I walked along the dock to the store, people kept saying, “Are you the woman who brought the ling cod back under your dingy?” and introducing themselves to me.  Thanks to those two little boys, it only took a few minutes for me to become notorious.    

In retrospect, why couldn’t we have pulled these fish to the boat with the line under water where we could have netted them easily?  Or isn’t it sporting that way?