Hard Lessons

Well I've learned a few. I found out the hard way that the big ol ocean we all love can kill you dead real easy....you just can't treat it casually.  So having learned it the hard way when I know you need to have faith and be totally familiar with your equipment and have the right stuff for what you're doing.  You also need to be deliberate in nature, no guess work.....so knowing these things I was dismayed this morning to come across a  mishap that could have ended in the worst way.

Regular Mile 14 readers know that we live right next to the rock jetty that separates us from the El Cid Marina entrance that it protects. As I watched the sun come up and walked as I cast I see one of those really cool Hobie kyaks made for fishing come around the point, it was one of those ones that you paddle like a bike and I thought how someday I gotta get that deal. As I fished I watched the guy troll along and then realized the guy was in the water, he had rolled it over and was trying to reboard his boat. I watched him splash and splash  unsuccessfully to get back in the boat. Unlike Alaska he was still safe in the warm so I didn't think to much of it at first but finally he was just hanging onto it floating towards the rocks and had quit trying. Several boats left the harbor and didn't notice anything unusual. So after he'd been in the water for a good 1/2 hour I knew I had to do something. There was nothing to be gained by getting in the water to help, the first rule of rescue is don't compound the problem by endangering yourself....and...I kinda know those rocks with the ocean swells that we had were virtually impossible to climb up onto and that's how he would drown. So as fast as a 65 year old fishing guide in bare feet could go I headed for the tip of the jetty to encourage him to make for the beach and not the rocks that are closer. As I got to the light house I looked up the other side of the jetty into the harbor and see a panga boat coming way off. I wait and wait and run to him so he won't miss seeing me and knowing he can't hear from that far I wave and give him the emergency jumping jack like wave. He see's me and I point to other side and give him the ' go fast sign' that Tony has used and he gets to the guy. As luck would have it is my friend the legend Chalio and he helps the guy back into the kyak and then follows him around the point and back into the harbor,

If not for Chalio this could have been the 3rd drowning I have  been around here in Mazatlan. About ten years a go two guys in a Panga got onto those same rocks trying to rescue a swimmer in trouble. The swimmer got back to the beach but each of the boaters tried the rocks and they're just so slippery and the waves you knock you back , one made it , one didn't.

Chalio ends his fishing charters at 1:00 so I rode my bike over to thank him. I find out the man was huge, way to big for the boat. Chalio said he was about done up, no energy. He had an inflatable life jacket on that did not inflate. It was his first time in the boat and obviously didn't know the trick for reboarding a capsized kyak that I think every kyak boater practices....he treated the ocean casually, But, one of my Maxims in life is don't worry about what didn't happen,,,he just learned it the hard way, the lucky way, the way to be avoided.

Wanna hear fishing I'll bet....Well it's surely the year of the pargo. As you know the only slimeys in the really big dept I haven't caught from the beach was a two digit snapper. Well I  got him weeks ago so I got a personel best twice. And the other day although not the biggest I caught my 3rd biggest and the most beautiful. You see how red he his. He was in 2 ft of water at low tide next to the jetty and this fish didn't want lose....it was a noble fight . It was Christmas eve sunset so I cleaned him up real good and kept him ' entero' then gifted him to our friends Martin and Mercedes who were tickled to have fresh fish, his daughter told me in an excited voice, " it's big enough for all of us ". It made me feel real good.