to the shore, they both turned around and waved.
That was the last time I saw Cliff. Alison called me several months later to say the cancer, which had been diagnosed before our last trip, had taken his life. I knew Cliff would say it had been a good life.
chapter 3
Jane’s Fish
A charter can bring together the most unlikely people, people who would otherwise never choose to spend four or five hours together. During these charters I try to find what I call “the locking pin”—some common element in their lives. The simplest subjects are children and jobs, but I like to find more obscure experiences. I once put together two men who had been in the same Japanese concentration camp during World War II; they had not seen each other since their convalescence and did not recognize each other when they first met on the charter. It was only after I had drawn a great deal of information out of each of them that the parallel in their lives became clear. Even when I pointed out the connection, they spent a subsequent half hour verifying each other’s identities by recalling events that occurred in the horror of the Japanese camp. In the end, they wept uncontrollably on each other’s shoulders without saying a word. While they wept, we, the onlookers, wept with them. The charter ended in a group hug with everyone thanking the two old warriors for their courage.
The first people to come aboard Jane’s charter were Jane and her husband, Jeff, a couple in their early forties from Southern California. This was the second fishing charter they had booked while on Vancouver Island. Their first trip was in Tofino, where they spent an exciting morning catching and releasing some magnificent salmon. It was so much fun they decided to splurge on a second charter. I said a quiet thank you to the skipper of the Tofino charter and reminded this couple that unlike the weather in Tofino, here it was clear and hot. Jane produced a jumbo tube of sunblock and assured me that as Southern Californians they knew what the sun could do.
“Good,” I said. “Be sure to wash your hands with soap and water after applying the cream and keep your hats on.” They were wearing identical khaki slacks with identical white shirts, and to the amusement of the other guests, they wore identical floppy hats with their names on them. Jane was tall, around five foot eleven, while Jeff was slightly over six feet. Probably in their early forties, they looked athletic and made a handsome couple who gave the impression of being content with each other by the way they held hands and whispered together. During the course of the charter, I learned they were both competitive riders and owned training stables outside of Los Angeles.
The next guests to come aboard were brothers. The first was slightly built, under average height, with a varnished, bald head, wild, bushy eyebrows and ears set too low in his head, which gave him the appearance of a melting Popsicle. He was wearing a blue and grey rugby jersey and a pair of blue jeans held up by an oversized belt that nearly wrapped twice around his waist. He introduced himself as Matt. His brother was short and stocky with a protruding stomach that did not seem to be part of his body. He wore brown polyester pants and a plaid cotton shirt so well washed the colours had faded to grey. He looked as though he had dressed in a hurry and might have forgotten to slip on his undergarments. Shaking my hand with a crushing grip, he introduced himself as Vic. Both men had well-serviced hands. No fear of losing a rod overboard. Perched on the back of their heads were soiled baseball caps that were obviously part of their daily wear.
During the course of the charter, I learned they were dairy farmers who had family in Alberta tending the farm while they gave themselves a brief vacation from the routine of work. This was to be the highlight of their vacation. No pressure here, I thought wryly.
Arriving last was a young couple in their late twenties. They looked scrubbed and starched. They both wore short-sleeved shirts with button-down collars, new white deck shoes and stylish shorts with so many pockets you could lose your hands in them. Their flashing smiles showed white teeth and good humour. They eagerly introduced themselves as Alice and Ethan. Ah, computer nerds.
I looked up at Sten, who was already at the helm monitoring the engine and adjusting the squelch on the CB. When he looked back at me I threw him a questioning look.
“I’ll stay at the helm,” he said.
“You’re on,” I replied in response to our usual unspoken bet.
While Sten cruised us to the ten-fathom mark in the bay, I gave the guests a class in Drift Fishing 101. I taught them how to strip out the line, how to work the reels and how to react when they had a strike. Once they seemed confident about how to use the gear, I checked them for sunblock and reminded them to wash their hands before I dispersed them around the boat with their rods. For about an hour and a half we fished around the kelp bed and the ten-fathom line in the bay. There was lots of bait in the water around us, but all we caught were dogfish and a few shakers, very young salmon that you can shake off your line. Matt and Vic were thunderstruck by the dogfish, which resemble sharks. Sometimes they’re called cat sharks. They could not believe we shook them off the hook and sent them back into the ocean without ever touching them. I explained that a foot-and-a-half dogfish was more trouble than it was worth if you intended to prepare it for the table. The effort of skinning and filleting these small fellows produced very little edible flesh. In Britain dogfish are sold for fish and chips under the name of rock salmon, but they are the larger variety.
It can be tedious fishing under a hot sun when there is little activity. Many city people go out fishing with highlights from a television fishing show running through their minds. They expect to cast out their line and hook a huge fish that they will play expertly and land without misadventure. Fishing is a process, and you have to love that process. You have to be enthralled by your surroundings; you have to enjoy the unexpected appearance of wildlife and be excited simply by being outdoors. Catching a fish is your intention but the day should not be ruined if you go home “bredouille” (empty-handed), “skunked” or “with an empty creel.”
After an hour and a half, with only dogfish and shakers to show for their efforts, this group was becoming impatient. It takes more than an hour and a half to make me feel like Santiago on his eighty-four-day quest. I called out for everyone to pull in their lines and head below deck for a cold drink and a bite to eat while Sten moved us to another spot.
Earlier, while they were fishing, I’d spent time talking to each couple, asking them about their lives. Most people like nothing more than to talk about themselves, and what I discovered was that everyone in the group shared an Irish ancestry. While sandwiches were being unpacked and cans of juice snapped open, I mentioned that everyone in the group had Irish ancestry. In no time they were comparing backgrounds.
While this was going on, I went up to the helm to have a chat with Sten as we cruised to a fresh location.
“I think you found the locking pin,” he said.
“Sounds like it. It’ll be fun to see how it plays out.”
We relocated to a place on the other side of William Head. It was not a spot we usually frequented, but sometimes it produced a gorgeous fish. Once there, it was hard to get everyone out of the shade of the cabin and back on deck. The chatter among them was high-spirited. The brothers and Ethan had discovered that their distant relatives had both come from a town in Ireland called Sligo. Using my VHF, the Californians were calling relatives in California and Ohio to find out where their family had lived in “the old country.”
The tone of the language in the group started to take on mystical dimensions. I could hear the words weird, cosmic and strange uttered in excited tones. Before they resumed fishing, the Californians had heard back from their relatives that Jeff’s family originated in Sligo while Jane’s family came from a town in County Mayo now called Newport. There was a boisterous
