Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
“Well, haul it in for God's sake!” I yelled back, relieved by the diversion.
I quickly returned to the cockpit and watched as he hauled in on the hand line. Rigget the
frigate watched in fascination with his beady, orange eyes at the proceedings, safely en-
sconced in his towel nest. Gavin was about ready to haul in a nice sized dorado when there
was a boiling in the water and a strong jerk on his line.
“What the hell!” He said, surprised, “I think that was a bloody shark that just stole our sup-
per!” He pulled out the severed head of the luckless fish and took it off the hook, examin-
ing it briefly before tossing it over to Rigget, saying, “That must have been a big bugger.”
I laughed at the humor of the situation and even Gavin's face cracked into a poorly sup-
pressed grin.
He threw the line out again, and I felt sure we were sailing fast enough now to catch anoth-
er. Sure enough the bungee cord boinged out and we were suddenly into a school of dorado.
We pulled in three fair sized ones and stowed the line. Gavin had the honor of gutting and
skinning them.
“We can have one tonight, and I'll salt and dry the other two for later,” he said, testing the
sharpness of the handy flaying knife that we kept in the cockpit. We had a rule on-board
that whoever gutted and cleaned any catch must do it on deck where we could sluice off
with buckets of salt water and not in the cockpit where the smell of rotting fish parts be-
came unbearable.
Gavin had lost his sense of smell from a bad car accident when he was eighteen. A police
car had slammed into his stationary beach buggy on the side of a freeway late one Sunday
evening. He had just had his brakes worked on and was returning to army barracks when
he felt one of the wheels wobbling ominously. Stopping to tighten the wheel, he was struck
from behind, and his car was knocked into him as he was kneeling down with a wheel
spanner. He was concussed and sustained brain damage which to this day has robbed him
of his sense of smell and taste. It most certainly could have been a whole lot worse. I had
to constantly be his sense of smell and remind him of rotting fish or something burning on
the stove or whatever. It must be a terrible sense to lose, all those lovely smells and tastes
and aromas that this old world has to offer.
The days melted together and formed the first week out from the Galapagos Islands. We
were pleased to find that Rigget the frigate was much better and was flapping about one
night. When daylight came we noticed sadly that he was gone. It was strange though be-
cause, looking out to sea, we saw a frigate flying around Déjà vu several times, and we are
convinced that it was Rigget saying thank you and farewell!
