Occhio Gallery and Big Rock

There’s an old saying that sometimes the light at the end of the tunnel is the light of an oncoming train.  That’s about where I find myself right now, sitting squarely on the tracks facing the biggest weekend of  the year barreling toward me in the form of the 52^nd annual Big Rock Blue Marlin Tournament.

First I need to back up to about 9 weeks ago.  My partners and I found a quaint old waterfront store here in Morehead City.  It was perfectly located between the world famous Sanitary Restaurant and Fish Market and the headquarters and weigh station for the equally famous Big Rock Blue Marlin Tournament.  The building hadn’t been occupied in years and could only being described as a “fixer upper”.  A few days later we signed a lease and took on what we thought would just be a bit of spit and polish to get the building in shape as the new Occhio Gallery and headquarters.  We worked out a budget and set to work, inviting qualified friends and family down to the beach for the weekend, where we then cleverly Shanghaied them into putting in intense hours of hard, physical labor on the new building.

The budget was blown in the first few days and I’m now on a first name basis with staff at the city dump as well as the local mega home improvement store.  City officials here in Morehead were great, helping us meet impossible deadlines.  We were literally unpacking our stock minutes before the first customers entered the gallery and some of the paint was still drying.  It was a very long, hard, and tiring process.  One that defines the phrase, “If I only knew then what I know now…”  Click here here to see the whole process in pictures.

But it’s done and I’m happy to say it turned out better than we could have ever imagined.  It’s a cool space to come and talk about fish and fishing—a great place to hang out and, of course, buy stuff.  In our gallery space we have amazing underwater DVDs playing on the big screen TV surrounded by massive aluminum prints of underwater life from around the world, especially sailfish and marlin.  Luke Pearson just did a fantastic job of editing my raw footage from my last Isla Mujeres trip, Click here to see it on Youtube.  Along with the gallery and prints we also have a large selection of posters, greeting cards, postcards, decals, and t-shirts featuring prints from the Occhio gallery.  In addition to Occhio’s branded merchandise we also offer a few products that we felt blended well in the great new space.  Some are fun, like our SweeTea t-shirts and BoHo handcrafted long boards.  Other items are more practical for your life on the water, like OluKai footwear, Kaenon Polarized sunglasses, and Fishworks Proven Products technical clothing.  We are also the exclusive retailer for Vitek Sail products.  North Carolina-based designer Lauren Vitek has provided us with a great selection of her fashionable bags and totes made from recycled sails.

Both the gallery and store are now open and in the capable hands of the dynamic Donna McNeely, who is managing the store and gallery, as well as online sales.  Please check out our website over the next week to see our new products as they are listed. 

My work here on the gallery is done for now.  After postponing trips to Guatemala and Malta to finish the store, I need my blue water camera fix.  I’m writing this blog entry at my new desk in my office located in the back of the store.  From my 6’x6’ picture window I’m looking directly over the sterns of a few sport-fishing boats moored at our dock, and I can see Sugar Loaf island 100 yards across the channel, as well as the Intra-coastal Waterway and Core Banks Island.  At my feet are my camera bags—the Isla Mujeres tags from the March trip pitifully scrunched up around the handles.  I need to get back in the water!

Big Rock kicks off with the Keli Wagner Big Rock Lady Angler Tournament—a charitable event to raise money for the fight against breast cancer, and which serves as the precursor for the main event.  In the words of Jimmy Buffet “Come Monday…” it’s full steam ahead for one of the largest blue marlin tournaments on the U.S. continent with a purse that could be as high as the 7 figures!  The Big Rock!  This means a lot of big boats fishing hard and, if conditions are right, a lot of blue marlin action.  By far the majority of the fish will be tagged and released.  A few large fish will be weighed.  State, federal and, most importantly, high tournament minimum weights for a fish to be killed make the Big Rock an excellent use of the incredible summer blue marlin resource along this part of the Atlantic coast.

Blue Marlin action means I want to get wet.  I’m going to be using the Canon 1D Mark IV camera body for the first time and hope to capture a blue release underwater, not only on stills but also with this camera’s incredible HD video option.  That is if we can hook up.  I’ll be riding along with my business partners on the incredible Waste Knot, a 68’ sport-fishing machine.  The Waste Knot was built just up the road in Beaufort, NC, by Jarrett Bay and represents the pinnacle of sport fishing yachts.  So stay tuned for regular updates and track me in real time… come Monday.