6/2/2010 Flyin’ Fish

We were up early today as this was our first “official” day off and we didn’t want to waste a minute of it.

After our morning rituals, checking email, first coffee, first Pepsi, brushing teeth etc. we got ready for our plans for the day.

I packed us a picnic lunch and Bob filled the cooler with Pepsi’s and his adult beverage of choice. We gathered other things we needed for the day and off we went, out of the house by 9:45. First stop, Old Inlet Bait and Tackle, we needed ice, lip balm and bait. We are headed to the beach!

This is the first time we’ve been to the beach in three and a half years. Well, to the beach like this, like in the old days before full-timing.

By 10:10 we were settled in and there were very few sharing the beach with us at this hour. Here’s our view to the right.

What we see, lookin’ left.

It was the perfect day. Mid 80’s, low humidity and a slight breeze which was welcomed.

It didn’t take long for Bob to get into his “happy place”.

It didn’t take long for him to pull the first one in either. Granted, it was a sand shark but no matter what it was it would be thrown back. Bob fishes for the sport of it here at the beach. When he goes to New York salmon fishing…..well, he keeps those!

Now it had to be put back in the ocean.

Hence the title of this post.

It got a little warmer and the shirt came off.

It didn’t take long and another sand shark was caught. Can you tell Bob hasn't been out barefoot before today?

Again, flyin’ fish.

I was taking this picture of the water coming up on the beach and was caught by surprise when where I was standing was suddenly covered with water. The wave came in farther than they had been and I thought I was safe. Oh wow, is that water cold!

Of course it wasn’t nearly as cold as it was that day back in February of ‘03 when I did the Polar Bear Plunge. Compared to THAT this water was bath water!

Going after the next one.

Now I have to admit, I did something really mean today. I called my friend LaVon and said, “Listen to this LaVon” and I held the phone out towards the waves pounding the surf. I then asked her if she heard it and she replied yes but couldn’t place it. I told her I was on the beach and that was the waves rolling in and hitting the beach. She replied, “You know what Snookie? You know what??? You have a real mean streak!” Then she went on about being landlocked in Oklahoma or something like that. I felt bad for doing that to her…NOT! That was so much fun I called Kathy. our Arizona friend from Nebraska. and did the same thing.

By noon more people came to this fisherman’s beach to spend the day.

In the meantime, Bob caught yet another sand shark and again it went flyin’ back into the ocean.

I was wondering why everyone was throwing them back in,,,literally throwing them and then I watched and figured out the the waves recede so quickly that it is in the best interest of the fish to get them into deeper water than make them work so hard wiggling across the sand to get back into the water. The next wave may not come in far enough to float them back out.

See this fellow here? He was with his a family just a little bit down the beach from us and his pole was stuck in a sand spike waiting for the hit. Well, it got hit alright, it pulled the pole right out of the spike and was being pulled into the ocean. He saw it happening and like a flash was in the water retrieving his pole. Whatever he had on the other end was determined to GO! He had a pretty good fight getting his catch in.

I walked over to see what had caused all this commotion.

Turns out it was a skate. Nobody like to catch a skate. See that tail, it has barbs down either side of it and it uses that tail for defense! Over the years Bob and I have seen people really hurt by that tail.

Bob’s gotten use to the water temperature by now and is going out a little bit to cast even farther into deeper water. We know the blues are in as we saw a school of them feeding farther out.

Ahhhh….signs of summer. Seeing these planes carry banners behind them, flying up the coast is a sure sign of summer.

Here’s a banner telling everyone that a new store is open in the Tanger Outlets. Other ones will advertise a restaurant or a nightclub.

Bob demonstrates the fisherman stance. You can see this all up and down the fisherman’s beach.

Take notice the shirt is back on and that he is covering his feet now. This is our first time on the beach and we’ve been out here longer than we should have been.

We can’t stay out here much longer, we are starting to burn.

Waves.

I was sitting in my chair reading and I heard this whomp whomp whomp and knew to look to the sky.

Chinooks! You can never mistake that sound.

There was a 20-something woman next to us on the beach and surprisingly enough she was there to fish. That just seemed so unusual to me as I have never seen that in all the years Bob and I have spent on the fisherman’s beach. I had the occasion to talk with her when I saw what she brought in on her line. She said she didn’t want to wait for the boys to go fishing with on the next holiday since her days off were Wednesday and Thursday and they had off the weekends. She said she would rather come down from Dover by herself than not at all. She caught several sand sharks and two horseshoe crabs.

Shortly afterwards Bob caught a….you guessed it, another sand shark.

Once again…flyin’ fish.

I’m so glad this first day out Bob had a good day fishing, even it was just sand sharks.

At two o’clock we finally called it a day. We were starting have a great resemblance to lobsters.

Back at the house, after showers, we realized just how ineffective number 8, yes #8, sunscreen is on your first day at the beach. The tops of Bob’s feet are really burned. He hasn’t even worn sandals yet this year and hasn’t gone outside without socks so you can imagine. A good comparison would be Bob’s feet and a fire extinguisher….that RED!

Myself,,,yeah, you can definitely tell where the bathing suit straps were and I’m now sporting that ever popular summer look known as raccoon eyes. My face is red but the area around my eyes is white from the sunglasses. HOWEVER,,,,the farmer tan is gone!

Oh the trials and tribulations of a summer at the beach. If this is the worst of our problems, we’ll take it!