What an amazing last two days it's been!
Yesterday, my Dad, Brother, Sister-in-Law and I went out for 4 hours of fishing on the boat Island Girl. As we headed out of the harbor, the seas got rougher and rougher. As we zipped along to the location where we'd be fishing (about 10 miles off shore), it became excruciatingly clear that I'm not quitting my job to run away with the Navy. As the boat skipped over and crashed into the waves, I held on for dear life. Rationally, I knew we were safe, but irrationally, I was terrified (of what, I'm not exactly sure - it felt like airplane turbulence). David, for his part, became sea sick almost immediately. My Dad and Maryn weren't phased by the trip out.
Once we arrived at the location we'd be fishing, the boat continued to rock back and forth. ("Rocking back and forth" doesn't really capture the scene. Think more: every few seconds, I felt like the boat was going to be capsized. Yeah, that was it.) Again, I knew we were safe (the captain and mate were completely unphased by the conditions), but for me, I was anything but comfortable. Still, we came to fish and fish I would!
We were fishing for fluke, and my Dad (naturally) caught the first one. A keeper at over 18 inches long. Maryn caught the second. I had no luck for a while until I pulled up not one, but two bluefish! (One on each of the two hooks I had baited). What they lacked in size, I made up for with style.
We continued to catch flukes (I must have brought in 5 of them), but the vast majority of them were too small to keep (usually only by an inch or two).
I did eventually get something resembling sea legs, and by the end of the trip the gentle but steep rocking motion of the boat didn't phase me all that much. Still, the photos on the boat are quite basic, as I had to hold on with a death grip at all times.
Fortunately, the ride in was way calmer than the ride out. By the time we stepped off the boat, I was ready to do it all over again. (But 4 hours on a boat is plenty, thank you very much).
After boating we hit the beach and did a little geocaching. Lots of fun, and way more in my comfort zone.
We started off today with some shore fishing. We had some bait my Dad picked up earlier in the week, and we stopped by the supermarket to pick up some raw fish and seafood as backup. Naturally, my Dad landed the first fish of the day. Except it wasn't a fish! He caught a baby shark. In fact, he'd end up catching two during the morning fishing session. David also caught a shark, and I managed to pull in a Fluke (as luck would have it, it was too small to keep). It was a terrific fishing session. It didn't hurt that I could skip the panic attack, and David could skip the seasickness.
The rest of today was spent making our way to and from the lighthouse located at Cape May point. While there, we caught an hour long nature walk, which was absolutely riveting.
I'm telling you, these were two very packed, and very fun days.
Note: I didn't take any of the pictures from Saturday. The ones below are from Maryn and David (the awesome photos of the butterfly, spider and frog were all Maryn!).
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