Hope

Packing For St Thomas

As you may know we are moving to a new blog more initigrated into the website.  I'm dulicating the blog here for a few more entries until the traffic has moved.  To view the new blog click here. www.occhioinc.com/blog

The last few weeks have been hell.  This year has seen one of the biggest white marlin runs ever here in North Carolina.  Between Ocean City and Oregon Inlet the white marlin have been going ballistic.  One boat released 57 in a single trip.  And I’ve been stuck in the gallery.  By last weekend I’d had enough and decided I could squeeze out a short break from the office early in the week.  I traveled up to Pirate’s Cove on Monday afternoon to join the Waste Knot for a late-season shot at the action.  I stood on the end of the dock and watched as the Waste Knot came under the bridge.  As she made the turn down the channel, I noticed that her starboard rigger was jammed tight with blue flags showing off 14 white marlin releases for the day.  They had hit bait ball after bait ball with white marlin cutting sardines and minnows with some 50-pound yellow fin tuna mixed in for some spice.  This was it, I was convinced.  I was not too late!
We left the dock at 5:30 the next morning under breezy conditions with a forecast for a perfect day.  I hadn’t slept all night, like a kid at Christmas hoping for his first bike.  Cameras were prepped, mentally I was ready, the shot I wanted so well-visualized in my mind it was as good as hanging in the gallery.  The day ended a skunk.  Not a single white marlin in sight.  I was devastated.  The only consolation was the fact that I was l leaving for St. Thomas in a few days for another chance at a way more elusive adversary, the blue marlin.  It’s this hope of the next great shot that keeps me doing this insane and often seemingly impossible thing that I do.
Yesterday, while packing for St. Thomas, I got a phone message from Keith English, the owner of Click Through, the 68′ Wanchese that I was to be working on in the Virgin Islands.  He said, “Have you seen the weather forecast for the islands?  It’s looking really nasty all week.  The forecast is for 9′ seas and 20 knot winds off the fishing grounds of the North Drop and it’s going to rain–a lot.”

I left messages for a few captains down in St. T., including Matt, the captain of the Click Through.  Then I called the airlines to cancel.  Matt called me back with the news that, yes, the weather was crappy, but boats where hooking up 6+ blues a day.  I spent the afternoon changing my mind every 10 minutes, like that Clash song, “Should I stay or should I go? If I go there will be trouble, if I stay it will be double.”  Call it potential, possibility, or even hope, but I guess I suffer from that uniquely human trait that allows us, in the face of very small odds to believe that there is a chance I can pull this off.
It’s with this hope in mind that I sit writing the first entry to my St. Thomas blog from the airport on my way south.  I will try to update daily over the next week as I try for my blue shot.  You can also follow me daily on my SPOT tracker in real time.  I hope you will join me.