Pescado

At 5 a.m. the alarm clock sang its lovely and upbeat Mexican music. It wasn’t hard for your humble narrator to rise from bed as I hadn’t slept much the night before as I was anticipating the day’s fishing trip. My stomach also hurt from the fajita buffet on the Sunset Cruise the night before.

I quickly showered, shaved and got dressed. I woke Elise up so she could get ready while I walked to the ATM as we had spent our last pesos the night before.

I walked back to the room to find that Elise wasn’t ready yet. I walked back downstairs and waited for our taxi. Our taxi pulled up a few minutes after 6 a.m. I asked the driver to wait so I could run up and get mi esposa. Elise was already on her way down the stairs when I left the taxi.

We hopped in the taxi and drove next door to the Rose to pick up two other couples who were going fishing.

The ride to the marina was tough because 1) I was extremely exhausted (too much sun, not enough sleep, I’ve been looking forward to this fishing trip for months and I’m still fighting off a cold) and 2) my stomach was killing me. We arrived at the marina on time and stood in line next to the docks to check in. I walked over to our driver who was standing at the check in line and asked if there was a bathroom that I could use. He pointed to his left and told me to walk around the corner. He said, “Go ahead, you have plenty of time.”

I walked around the corner and found the bathrooms but both the men’s and women’s were padlocked. My stomach was gurgling and brewing with anticipation. I stopped at coffee stand and asked the vendor where the bathrooms were located. He said they were further down the marina. A local overheard me and told me to follow him. I followed the local for a couple hundred yards and he pointed me to the banos.

I only mention this because I rarely have gastro-intestinal “issues”. I was not going to be on a Mexican fishing boat for eight hours with gut rot. I rushed into the bathroom to find another person, uh, taking care of business. I found the stall furthest from the other guy and I, uh, took care of business.

I’m usually very Seinfeldian in that I will usually hold off on taking care of business until I can make it home. This wasn’t one of those occasions. The fajita buffet and all of the excitement had taken its toll on my large intestine. It wasn’t the prettiest of sights and sounds but it had to be done and my entire body shivered with heavenly relief. I could now enjoy the rest of our chartered fishing adventure with no more stomach issues.

As most people do when they finish up their business, it was time to do the final “paperwork”. I looked at the toilet paper dispenser to find that there was no more paper. Panic set in but I eventually had to laugh. I sat there for a while and contemplated my next step. I laughed some more and thought, “This is just perfect.”

I thought about doing “the walk” to see if there was toilet paper in any of the other stalls. I decided against “the walk” and resorted to using the only option at my disposal: The Gringo Times, Cabo San Lucas’ newspaper for honkies. It was quite the experience and I’m sure I’ll remember it for the rest of my life. I didn’t bother to look but I’m sure I had a nice print of page 8 on my hind side for the rest of the day.

My happy digestive system and I walked back down to the docks to meet up with everyone: Elise, Sean, Jennifer and our crew, Captain Ed and deck hand Saul. Sean and Jennifer are on vacation from Houston so it was great to be on a fishing boat with other Texans.

We shoved off from the dock at 7 a.m. and headed straight out from Land’s End. We made small talk while trolling the ocean with squid lures in search of marlin. We trolled and trolled and trolled. Nine o’clock rolled around and not a nibble. At almost 10 a.m. Saul jumped from his seat and down to where us fishermen were sitting (the girls were our cheerleaders for the day). He handed me the pole and told me to start reeling in. I hooked a little tuna. Finally, a little action. I celebrated by cracking open a Pacifico,.

Half an hour later Sean hooked a good-sized dorado (mahi mahi). We trolled where Cortez and Pacifico (not the beer, the ocean) meet for another hour or so. After constant radio communication between us and other pangas, El Capitan saw a big fish. He threw a line into the water where he saw the fish, waited a few seconds and it hit. He yelled something in Spanish and Saul started reeling in the troll lines. He told Sean to sit down and handed him the pole. He instructed Sean on how to reel in a marlin (pull up and wind while going down). Sean felt the fight of the fish, looked over at me, sitting next to him and said, “Shit, I’m going to need your help on this one.”

Just as he said that a gorgeous sailfish flew out of the water, into the air for all to see and then crashed back into the water. I think this fish wanted to go out in blaze of glory and one last breathe. The fish pretty much died after that. Or maybe when he came out of the water for the brief moment he caught my cold and called it a day. The sailfish didn’t put up too much of a fight but its weight alone made for sore arms for Sean.

I got excited because I was up next to reel in the big one. I went to the cabin of the panga and scarfed down my boxed lunch so as to have some energy. We trolled for another hour or so and I caught a pequito dorado. We trolled for another hour and Captain Ed saw a big marlin. We tried to bait it but came up with no luck. We trolled the Cortez for another two hours with no nibbles.

Eight hours after leaving the marina and four fish caught our fishing trip came to an end. Saul hung our flags as the birds followed closely behind to get leftover live bait.

I was pretty bummed that I didn’t catch a marlin. Oh well, we’ll come back in a year or two and charter a better boat that will take us deeper into Pacifico. I tipped our crew and had our catches measured and weighed. Nobody told us how much our fish weighed so I can’t make up any good fishing lies. Just by guessing I’d say that Sean’s sailfish was over 9-feet and weighed a little over 150 lbs. The four Texans then followed our fish to the skin and filet shack.

I took the meat of tunas and dorados and Sean took the bill of his sailfish. We exchanged e-mail addresses and handshakes and Sean and Jennifer went on their way. Elise and I went back to our room, put the fish in the fridge, showered and headed back out to town to do some shopping. Elise really wanted some silver while in Cabo. We found a great little shop where we were given samples of almond tequila and free beers. Elise was impressed with my Mexican merchant haggling abilities. We got her a nice necklace, pendant and matching bracelet for a price that I felt was acceptable.

We were sun-beaten, tired and hungry so we went back to our room to get our fish and then headed down the beach to the Office for dinner. We had to wait half an hour to be seated. I was about to fall asleep when we were called for our table. While waiting we gave the host our fish and he gave us our options for the preparation. We had the tuna seasoned, baked and served with a rich garlic butter sauce. The durado was breaded with breadcrumbs and tortilla chips and served with an awesome tomato and chile salsa.

Dinner was great. I told Elise all about my awkward spa experience for the day before. We had a nice little date on the beach, eating the fish we had caught that day and laughing the night away. We paid our bill and walked hand-in-hand along the beach to our room where we both immediately conked out when our heads hit the pillows.