The doomed fishing trip
This morning, after only 4 hours of sleep (on a Saturday! grrrr), Jake woke me up to go fishing. Fishing I can handle. Fishing from a boat, from a dock, from the beach are all fine by me. We loaded up the gear and drove first to Whataburger for "breakfast". When we were all full of grease and O.J., we proceeded to Mayport. We drove to the beach on base and climbed over the dunes to a lovely beach. Did we fish off the picturesque sugar-sand beach? Of course not. We scaled a jetty of giant, jagged boulders. Have I mentioned that the wind was terrible? We baited our hooks with live shrimp and cast into the roughest river ever, and I managed to immediately "catch" one of the boulders and snapped my rod in half. Jake stuck it back together and we discovered, after catching a few more boulders, that the current was too strong and we'd have to find a new spot to fish.
Now that we'd loaded the truck again, we headed off-base and found a nice little area of sandy beach right along A1A. Jake pulled the truck into the lot and I said "Now this is more my idea of fishing. Sitting on a log or pier, smoking cigarettes and relaxing." Apparently this was Jake's cue to drive right past the sandy beach, two piers and several logs. We arrived at another, more foreboding jetty, unpacked the truck, and scaled the rocks. This time we had raging river current on one side, and protected wetlands on the other. Needless to say, I felt perfectly safe! We climbed across the jetty for about ten yards to an area with jagged rocks in front of the jetty. Of course you can't fish from the nice, big, dry boulders. We had to climb across a maze of wet, jagged rocks to get to an area that I was sure wasn't there during high tide.
Jake went skipping across the rocks. I was more cautious. I took very slow steps, trying to balance myself, my fishing pole, and my net. I chose my rocks carefully. Now here's a helpful hint: Old Navy flip-flops do not offer the needed traction for traversing such terrain. Have you ever seen a cat fall into a swimming pool? I always wondered how they kept from getting soaked and just bounced back out. I found out today. I had no idea what upper body strength I possess. I was a yoga-master for about 15 seconds, while keeping from falling into unknown depths of brackish water. I smashed both knees into the rocks, and was soaked up to the knees.
I collected myself enough to sit on a rock and take off my flip-flops for better traction. Jake came over and took my hand to help me up. I realized that wet bare feet are no better than flip-flops. I slipped and fell again. This time my foot and leg we jammed down between two rocks which were covered in sharp oyster shells. Jake was convinced that I had broken my leg. I pulled my foot out and started bleeding all over the rocks because oyster shells turn big toes and heels into mince-meat! Of course I took the next logical course of action and burst into tears and sat crying on the rocks for ten minutes. Jake was finally able to convince me that I should try to climb back to shore instead of instituting my plan of living on that rock in the middle of the St. Johns River.
I managed to hobble back to shore and sit on the tail-gate of Jake's truck while he held my foot (he says "like we do a horse") in order to pour ice water all over my oyster-wounds (very painful, despite the numbing effects of ice.) We then fished from the shore (finally) catching nothing but one blue crab, which wasn't exactly fair because someone had already ripped off his claws. Jake did catch one fish, with a net, in a tide pool, which was also not fair. Essentially, we just set a bunch of shrimp free into the river, with horrible abdominal wounds. I have made a solemn vow (and my foot thanks me) never, ever to climb the horrible, wet, jagged-rock jetty again.
Now that we'd loaded the truck again, we headed off-base and found a nice little area of sandy beach right along A1A. Jake pulled the truck into the lot and I said "Now this is more my idea of fishing. Sitting on a log or pier, smoking cigarettes and relaxing." Apparently this was Jake's cue to drive right past the sandy beach, two piers and several logs. We arrived at another, more foreboding jetty, unpacked the truck, and scaled the rocks. This time we had raging river current on one side, and protected wetlands on the other. Needless to say, I felt perfectly safe! We climbed across the jetty for about ten yards to an area with jagged rocks in front of the jetty. Of course you can't fish from the nice, big, dry boulders. We had to climb across a maze of wet, jagged rocks to get to an area that I was sure wasn't there during high tide.
Jake went skipping across the rocks. I was more cautious. I took very slow steps, trying to balance myself, my fishing pole, and my net. I chose my rocks carefully. Now here's a helpful hint: Old Navy flip-flops do not offer the needed traction for traversing such terrain. Have you ever seen a cat fall into a swimming pool? I always wondered how they kept from getting soaked and just bounced back out. I found out today. I had no idea what upper body strength I possess. I was a yoga-master for about 15 seconds, while keeping from falling into unknown depths of brackish water. I smashed both knees into the rocks, and was soaked up to the knees.
I collected myself enough to sit on a rock and take off my flip-flops for better traction. Jake came over and took my hand to help me up. I realized that wet bare feet are no better than flip-flops. I slipped and fell again. This time my foot and leg we jammed down between two rocks which were covered in sharp oyster shells. Jake was convinced that I had broken my leg. I pulled my foot out and started bleeding all over the rocks because oyster shells turn big toes and heels into mince-meat! Of course I took the next logical course of action and burst into tears and sat crying on the rocks for ten minutes. Jake was finally able to convince me that I should try to climb back to shore instead of instituting my plan of living on that rock in the middle of the St. Johns River.
I managed to hobble back to shore and sit on the tail-gate of Jake's truck while he held my foot (he says "like we do a horse") in order to pour ice water all over my oyster-wounds (very painful, despite the numbing effects of ice.) We then fished from the shore (finally) catching nothing but one blue crab, which wasn't exactly fair because someone had already ripped off his claws. Jake did catch one fish, with a net, in a tide pool, which was also not fair. Essentially, we just set a bunch of shrimp free into the river, with horrible abdominal wounds. I have made a solemn vow (and my foot thanks me) never, ever to climb the horrible, wet, jagged-rock jetty again.