The Monster

Here we are, 3 weeks in, and 1 to go. I had a rough day today. I spent six hours on a boat yesterday puking my brains out. I don't expect any sympathy because these adventures are self-imposed. Yesterday was the best, worst day of my life. Most people take gravol before going on a boat in the ocean, but I chose to scarf 3 tacos from the Great establishment of Taco Bell. I think Taco Bell is food from the Gods, but they are not as satisfying when they come up the second time. I am glad though that our big-ass tuna love regurgitated soft tacos with hot sauce, at least the 180 pounder we hauled in did.

I booked a six hour ocean fishing trip with Deep Sea Fishing Kauai. I was by myself, so I booked a shared trip. There was only one other guest and we had two crew. The tourist's name was Jesse and he was from Oklahoma. When he introduced himself, I kept hearing Jizzy. "I'm Jizzy". Then I'd repeat, "Jizzy?" "No, Jiizzzyyy. He thought that by saying it slower, I'd get it, but I didn't. We repeated this one too many times.

We had Andy, our main fishing helper dude. He's a crazy surfer following the waves around the world. He's off to Samoa to guide surfing there in a couple weeks. Then he is coming back to Hawaii for the winter when the big waves slam the coast. Hawaii waves in the summer, compared to the winter, are like Jack Pine skiing in North Bay, to Sunshine Village in Banff.

Then we had our captain, Captain J. He was a born and raised Kauaian about 5'4 who has been boating out of Port Allen since he could remember, about 25 years.

These guys were very serious and intense. They were basically setting the tone. We the tourists are there to pull in fish for them. They eat if we catch fish. A common theme with the tourist operators around here are to claim they are not making money on this particular trip. There were only two of us on the trip when there should be 4-6, but they can make money if they catch fish.

Captain J explained how things would go down and asked what we wanted to do. They told us they caught a 310 pound tuna the day before. This was the biggest tuna caught in the last 25 years. The record is 325. I wanted to break the record. Jizzy wanted to catch some small fish to feed his family. The guides explained that they could slice a steak off a marlin, but not off a tuna. The market does not take sliced tuna, but they take sliced marlin, for whatever reason, I don't know.

The plan was to try and find some small fish and then search for the monster. Andy was all nuts over finding the monster too.

We set out and the water was rough. They said you might get wet. I was soaked in nine seconds. My seat was on the windy side and I got slammed by waves in the back of the ehad for the first 3 hours straight. I took off my crappy cotton tee and knew I was in for a burn without sunscreen, but oh well. Soon I was covered in granular salt. That my sound stupid, I know I'm in salt water, but I was covered in chunks of salt, thicker than granules of sand.

I knew right away I would toss my tacos, it was just a matter of time. I chatted with the guys for a while and then it just got to be too much. I broke my sunglasses in the washroom right before stepping on the boat. From the squinting, slamming waves in my head, rocking boat, I was starting to fade. But I wanted a monster in that boat. I decided to go below, which wasn't really below, it was just under the captain's seat. There was a wonderful aroma of shit, puke, fish guts, and diesel gas, but there was a table to help prop my head up. The guide slathered his face in sunscreen and didn't rub it in, so he looked like the walking dead. No one talked for a couple hours like this.

At this point I asked him how many people get sick on the boat. He said every day. There was some comfort in that. They should make shirts "I barfed on Captina J's boat and survived" or something way more clever , but you get the idea. A few minutes later, my next question was, "where do I puke?" He said overboard, but go to the down wind side.
We were still cruising against the waves and wind and thought for sure I would go overboard, but I needed to see what my insides looked like.

So I crawled to the edge, hung onto the gunwale and heaved'er really good. The tacos tasted the same on the way up, but I didn't enjoy it as much. I was actually able to video some of my barfing and it's in extremely high quality HD. I did feel better after this and being so close to the side of the boat with half my body hanging over the edge, made me more comfortable on the boat too.

Meanwhile, they call this suffering, fishing. Basically we had seven lines in the water and I know they never went to the small fishing spot, they went straight for the monster, which was ok by me. There was a spot in the ocean where a pile of birds were flying around and there were about six other boats rocking out. Watching thos boats in the ocean was insane. I can't beleive they don't flip, but they don't. This wasn't a bad day out there, it's just typical Hawaiian water in the summer, rollers from every direction.

WWWWWHHHHHHHHHHHHHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIZZZZZZZZZZZZZ goes my line. "THERE, THERE, THERE GET IT!!!" "ALRIGHT LET HIM TAKE IT!" "WAIT, WAIT , WAIT, NOW GET ON HIM!!!!"

Andy had explained earlier how it would look when we landed one. You basically let the fish take the line for round 1 and tire him out. Then we start pulling him in, in rounds 2-10. He had also explained that one man was no match for an Ahi Tuna. This was a team effort. The other thing I was thinking of, was that this fish is money and survival to these guys and there was no way we were not going to pull this monster in.

I reeled for about 10 minutes until my forearm was so tight, it wouldn't reel no mo. So I got Jizzy on the line. He was in heaven reeling like a pro. "watch the drag you two!!! It's game over if you hit that!" There were so many little details. Jizzy reeled until he couldn't. I took over again. We hauled him towards the boat an inch at a time. If he gave a foot, we took it. Andy got on the line with both hands pulling and I reeled in. Later, Jizzy got back on.

The reels were in holders on the side of the boat. Captain J asked if I wanted to move to the big chair and reel him in from there. He said the best spot was from the side of the boat, but they could harness me in the big chair if I wanted. I said "No, let's haul him in from here." "Alright Jon!", he said happily.

Andy and Captain J were funny because they didn't listen to each other. Andy says to me "Alright we're putting you in the big chair!" "Oh no" I thought. By the way, these two crew were yelling and frantic and pumped on adrenaline and Jizzy was in a parallel universe somewhere.

" jON KEEP THE TIP UP. mAN, KEEP it UP!! (Again we're talking about the fishing rod here dirty people)

So I've got the rod in my left hand, the reel in my right, I'm sitting in this chair and being harnessed in. They hook the rod up to me and we're in for the long haul. Unfortunately, I have no strength in my left arm. I may have been ok, if the hands were reversed, but they weren't so I was screwed. I was squeezing the rod between my legs and starting to blabber about some stupid surgery I had. They're still yelling and freaking and somehow the message got through. Through this whole process you have to keep tension on the line, if you let it go slack, the fish can snap the line and your face goes on their website as the idiot who let the monster get away and made everyone's families starve.

We got the rod back to the holder on the side of the boat. We reeled another minute or so, until we saw the monster circling under us and the lead was the rod tip. Andy grabbed the line and workedc him to the top of the boat. I was helping to keep the line clear. Captain J grabbed a gaff and both him and Andy hooked the fish and slid him onto the boat.

There was a crazy uproar for four men. Jizzy yelled "That's the biggest fish I've ever seen!!!!!AAARRRGHHHH!!!!"

You may not want to read these next lines.


The fish needed to be clubbed about ten times in the head with an aluminum bat and then it's throat was slit. There was a silent prayer said at this point. This fish gave its life to provide for many families. There was blood everywhere and they just tossed buckets of water and it all drained away. Then I realized how much blood had been spilled in that boat before me.

I got a couple shots of me with the fish on the boat. Jizzy went down to get his camera. He was never the same after that. Like I said before the aroma was so wonderful down there that only Freddy Kreuger could love it, or maybe Jason Voorhees too.

Jesse had such a shot of adrenaline pump through his body and after it ran its course he was done. He barfed his brains out and I caught that on video too.

Unfortuantely for me, I don't get adrenaline that easy anymore after all the shoulder dislocations.

They asked what we wanted to do. We said lets troll home. They said ok. Then they didn't listen to us and kept looking for a second monster. We had no luck, they came down and said, "Sorry guys the fish are here and we had to try. We can troll on the way home or we can pull everything up and get you back." We opted to get to the port.

I looked at Andy and said "If we didn't have a monster already, I would suffer all night until we did." We pulled up the lines and went home.

As we cruised back, I sat in the big chair. I couldn't think of anything that didn't make me sick. Everything I thought of turned into something sickly. I thought of my bed and it became a waterbed. Usually, I can use visualiztion to get myself out of painful or stressful situations, nothing was working. Then I visualized that I was gravol, not that I was taking gravol, but that I was gravol. I was the stuff that people took to make themselves feel better. That worked. I also prayed to God, thought of friends and family and kind of cried a bit, like World Cup is over kind of tears.

We landed in port and Captain J's family was there to share in the catch. I got a couple more shots with the monster and said farewell to Jesse and his family. It was a bonding experience like no other and then you just say cya later.

Since we came home early, I had an hour to klll. I worked as one of the crew, helping to load the fish in a truck and clean the boat. We chilled with a beer shooting the breeze. These dudes were way more chilled at the end of the trip then the start.

Krista picked me up with Melody. Oh yeah, the two waved as I left the port earlier that day. It was so cute to see my little munchkin waving feverishly from the dock. She really has grown up here.

On the drive home, there was a beautiful rainbow over a beautiful church. I stopped, took a shot and felt like God was winking at me after I asked for help through my ordeal with the monster. This is not like me, but we are allowed to evolve.

We went and rented a movie and the movie store floor was rocking. I was standing at the cash bobbing back and forth. I ate a few bites of salad and that was all I could handle.

So, today was a bad hangover day, one of the worst, and I hadn't even drank. I was starving so we went to go for lunch. We got in the jeep and the smell of tacos brought it all back. Krista said it wasn't tacos, but my sweat-soaked t-shirt from soccer two days ago. Whatever the smell was, by the time we sat down in the Indian restaturant, I was going to toss tacos again. We got up and left. I feel better now, after a day of rest and am ready to rock the last week here, and I will always have the story of catching the monster.