h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I got an invitation from a trust department banker to join him on Captain Turner's boat out of Watchapreague for a day of fishing. I had mixed feelings about whether or not to go: I'm not all that keen on fishing, and I had visions of being 'hit on' all day by a banker trying to ingratiate himself into the deep pockets of the invested assets of the employee benefit funds I manage. Going meant getting up at 4 am in the morning. What does one wear on such a junket? On the other hand I firmly believe that time spent messing on a boat are not deducted from one's total. I accepted.

We joined up at 5 am on the south-side of Virginia's Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel, and I was surprised that there were only two other guests, a lawyer and the head of a small ship repair firm. The threesome were nattily attired in tasteful shorts, polo shirts with labels, and new deck shoes while I had chosen Merlot-stained Levi's, a blue work shirt, and my salt encrusted deck shoes were veterans of many, many excursions to the water. After introductions we loaded the banker's coolers into his rental van and set off across the bridge tunnel in the dark.

It was still dark when we arrived in the tiny fishing hamlet of Watchapreague on Virginia's Eastern Shore and parked at the marina. Captain Turner was on his boat, a gleaming wooden workboat of ancient design. Later I learned that he had bought it new from the builder in 1947 and the engine, it's 13th, had 10,000 hours on the clock. Captain Turner's son, the bait boy, arrived, loaded our gear, and we we're off in still waters and a lightening sky.

My host and his guests excitedly talked fishing and boats with the captain and shivered in their shorts in the morning air while I reclined in a deckchair and snoozed off my sleep deprivation. I roused momentarily to watch the blood red sun rise out of the water. I was comfy in my jeans and long sleeved shirt and declined a beer to return to my snooze. A change in the engine's RPMs announced our arrival at Captain Turner's chosen spot to begin our fishing. I'm up to learn the drill.

The banker, lawyer and Indian Indian chief are in the deck chairs, intent. The bait boy is passing out rods, their double-hook bottom rigs baited with a squiggles of squid. Captain Turner is backing down on the anchor he has deployed from his seat at the controls. "Ok," he announces, and the fishing begins.

We all hit the releases on our reels, and the monofilament line pays out 45 feet and hits the bottom. The conversation about boats, motors, inboard/outboard vs. outboard motors, bottom rigs, previous trips, fish caught continues. It is a stunningly beautiful morning to be up, but moreover and to be up and be on the water.

Almost immediately I get a strike and begin reeling. The others are also reeling. We move about the deck weaving our rods in and out of each other as the lines pay out and cris-cross. The baitboy has his hands full with the lawyer's rig and directing the weaving. "No, go over," he says to me as I work my way aft, the drag on the line too low to reel my fish. At the stern of the boat I pump, raising the rod high then reeling as I bring it down. Forward on the boat the baitboy is threading the lawyer's bottom rig thru the lines of the banker and the Indian Indian chief. Captain Turner, in his office at the boat's controls, smiles and drinks in another glorious morning on the water.

I get my fish to the surface, a 3 1/2-foot sand shark. The baitboy has unhooked and tossed a small trout from the Indian chief's line and raises my shark by the leader with gloved hands. After struggling for a few moments to extract the hook he puts it on the fishbox in the center of the deck and cuts the line. The shark is held aloft to the morning--the first fish in the boat. I accept my first beer; it's 8 am. Captain Turner orders the shark in the fishbox rather than overboard when I add the taste of shark steak to the ongoing fishing chitchat. I'm rebaited and back on the bottom.

I have another strike and reel in a small trout. I grasp the trout, carefully extract the hook, and toss the fish back into the green water. "I'll do that," the bait boy says as he puts more squid on my hook. I draw laughter from the group recovering from my faux pas: "I better smell like fish when I get home!" The four of us are constantly reeling in fish that are checked against measurements gouged into the wooden fishbox lid and tossed back. "Looks like my kid's growth chart on the garage wall," the Indian chief says of the scratches on the lid. A discussion ensues on fishing limits, conservation efforts and the political skirmishes between commercial fishermen, headboat operators like Captain Turner, and recreational fishermen. After too many skates are reeled in, we move, all of us having a beer during the short break. More fish, more fish stories, boat stories and rig stories, more moves, more beers; the morning drones on. I change into shorts and a Calcutta Offshore Baits T-shirt carefully chosen for the outing and add a few fishing stories of my own. The six of us become a fishing unit and the fishbox fills with trout, roundhead, blues, an occasional triggerfish, and a flounder and the trashbox fills with empty beer cans. Box lunches from the bank's executive dining room are produced and consumed. "Come on doormat!" the banker calls to his rig while describing how to fillet a flounder with a single swipe of a sharp knife.

At 3:30 we are back at the dock, the fish is been cleaned and bagged by a black man who follows my instructions for skinning the shark and cutting it into 2" steaks. The banker pays Captain Turner, the baitboy, and the fishcleaner. By 5 we're back at our cars, heading out for soccer games, recitals or weekend beach homes. Another day at the office.