I am such a landlubber now.
Well I did decide that this would be the Year of the Land. No trips on the Keewaydin, all spare money going to the garden.
True to my intent, I dug a garden and planted an orchard, and nearly two thousand other trees
I did make some pots & bought two nets, but spent more energy wondering when I'd get out there than actually fishing.
Last time I went out was so unplanned that I had no bait.
I HATE putting a pot back in the sea without bait. The next time out feels pointless. There was one shred of a fish-head left in one, but the other three were bare.
I got out there last night. It had been a hot, jetski sort of day, but by the time I got down to the beach, a sea mist was creeping in.
A mist at sea is magical. The sea is always a dream-space, but a mist crowns it. A bright halo, the mist equivalent of a rainbow hung over the rocks. Everything loomed, loomed large. Birds lingered long on their cliff perches.
Strange globular jellyfish bobbed up like large dead eyes.
I set a net. Then went to pull those pots and bait them.
A lobster! What an undeserved gift.
I cooked her for supper, with broadbeans and potatoes from the garden. The Strumble fog-horn sounded into the night.
Went early to retrieve the net. One mackerel in a sargasso of summer weed. That rubbish of summer. Oarweeds and twine and bleached bladderwrack.
Next time I will try one of my bottom-set nets. Will risk the curse of the Spider.
Back to the land. The certainty of the land.
Holding the magic of that misty evening in my heart.
