A Sunny Day On The Lucky Lily

I pull into the docks in my black 99’ Ford cobra. I’m late for work. The skipper is going to be furious. However, my sprits are still drastically high from my morning coffee. I finally got a chat and a number from the beautiful barista Lindsay whom I’ve been crushing on since stumbling upon the little coffee shop she works at.

I park my car and jump out, I can already see Skipper Johns silhouette, arms waving angrily. He is furious, but I’ve never been late before, he’ll settle down once we get out on the water.

“Tom you frigger, where have you been! Let’s go! If I knew you weren’t gonna be reliable I wouldn’t have hired ya” he says. I know he’s just being stern because he’s frustrated, he doesn’t mean it, that’s the Skipper for ya.

“Let’s go then” I say as I jump aboard. My boots and waders in hand. I throw on my works clothes as we head out away from shore and into the open ocean waters.

We fish exclusively pelagic fish on “The Lucky Lily” (named after Skipper Johns’s wife). Our Crew on the trawler consists of Myself, Tyler, Rookie Doug, and Skipper John.

The Skipper is our captain, Rookie Doug organizes and sorts the fish from each haul. Me and Tyler haul in and release the trawl, and help out the captain when he needs a hand.

We work well together, In this industry you kind of have to. It can get dangerous sometimes. Not today though, today is a beautiful calm day on the water. However the unusual humidity hits us hard. Compared to our usual synchronized teamwork we’re a mess. Working at a snails pace, sweat pouring off us as the sun beats down on our backs, the net being hauled up unevenly. The Skipper is livid now.

Then all of a sudden we hear the skipper’s voice echo through the deck. “Here we go boys! Smarten up, there’s a school coming through!” You can hear the anticipation in his tone. We all perk up a little despite the heat. Here’s our chance to change the course of our day and make it a good haul.

Tyler and I bring the full heavy trawl up and dump it. “C‘mon Rookie, get to work!” Tyler yells jokingly. We throw the trawl back in the water ready for round two, the cold saltwater spray keeping us the slightest bit refreshed. We repeat this about four times, each time the net is as full or more as the time before it. Spirits are high now.

As we throw the trawl over for the fifth time I see a large shadow in the deep blue waters. “Did you see that?” I ask Tyler.

“See what? Have you officially lost it?” He laughs giving me a playful shove.

Maybe my mind was playing tricks on me. We bring in the trawl and as we lift it up the water breaks at the surface and out with it jumps a great white shark, teeth prepared to grasp anything in reaching distance, tail thrashing, it grabs ahold of the net and falls back returning to the ocean with our net in its strong jaws. The boat shakes with the force of its weight and slings back with a vengeance as the net gives and tears. The fierce attacker makes off with the trawl full of fish that for a split second was securely captured.

“Damn it!” Yells Skipper John. Following it up with some choice swear words I won’t repeat.

With the trawl gone and the adrenaline flowing we decide to call it a day. The Skipper will have to get our equipment fixed before we head out again. We did alright for the amount of time we were out but if we want to keep up a good season we don’t want “The Lucky Lily” to be grounded for long.

Still in disbelief when we get back I just sit in my car for a while. Replaying the wild scene in my mind. Finally deciding to head home I grab my keys and as I put them in the ignition I glance up and see the receipt Lindsay gave me with her number on it this morning.

After everything that happened at work my time sitting with Lindsay sharing a delicious piece of chocolate cake seems like so much longer ago than just earlier today. What I can only describe as a feeling of relief washes over me. It’s like a little bit of light in the dark of today’s events. I pick up my phone and instinctively dial her number.

“Hello, Lindsay speaking” her calm uplifting voice makes me smile

“Hey Lindsay, it’s Tom. I was wondering if you’d like to go out for supper, it’s been a long day and I’d love some company.” I say, now I’m getting nervous again. I admire her so much.

“Absolutely! Pick me up at seven?” She says, I can hear her smiling through the phone.

“See you then” I reply

I guess staring a shark straight in the eye gave me a little bit of extra courage I could never muster up on my own. Excited and still running on adrenaline I race home to get ready for our date. Seeing Lindsay always brightens my day, I can’t wait to get to know her on a more personal level. Who knows, she could be my soul mate. Only time will tell.