We were two hours off the Newhaven coast
Twelve of us
On a small boat we'd hired for the day
In choppy water
The Captain was a squat man
Of about sixty
With his arms bowed out
he was almost as wide as he was tall
He dressed only in shorts and flip-flops –
Not even a beard.
His skin was sandblast red
And there was crystallised salt in the wrinkles
He kept our position
Taught us how to fish
And untangled our lines
He said sea-fishing was best on choppy days
After a good hour
Without a single fish between us
Chris's line stretched taut
He had hooked something,
BIG!
He pulled back
Dug his feet into the deck
And began reeling his line in
For over half an hour he worked this thing
Cursing its stubborn fight for survival
Inbetween saying:
“It's a whoppa! Get the cameras ready, Boys!”
Then laughing
Laughing because we'd all thrown twenty quid in the kitty
'BIGGEST CATCH SCOOPS ALL!'
Finally Chris's catch gave up the fight
Chris now reeled his line in freely
No longer having to give the fish some slack
He wound that thing in furiously
Like he was having a weird wank
All of us hanging over the boat to see what monster he'd bring up
“Here it comes!” he said
And sure enough the sea surface broke
With a pathetic 'PLOP'
And we all peered in at what was swinging in the air
Chris's free hand out to rip it off the hook
A hideous bright red thing
Which resembled a pair of bollocks:
Chris had hooked a sea sponge
The boat rocked with laughter
Even The captain joined in
Chris seethed with anger
Stepped on the Deep-Sea-Gonads
And tugged the hook out of it
And then rain hit the deck
And the sea began swelling
And sometimes there'd be a wall of water shadowing us
And other times we'd be lifted up
on the peak of a huge balloon of liquid mass
The captain told us to fix our rods in the holders on the gunwhale
To get inside the cabin
And seal the door
So that's what we did
Cramped in
Against The Captain and machines
Which looked like they'd come
from an emergency ward
As the boat was lashed and tossed about
The Captain laughed
Though nervously, I thought
He pointed to the scanner
To hazy clusters of dots
“All boat wrecks,” he said, proudly
“A lot of 'em in these here waters!
That's why it's so good for cod.”
By now, the window looking out on the bow was under permanent wave
The stern was flooded
And sometimes the starboardside window was almost flat to the sea
If we'd have remained out on deck
we'd all have been swept overboard
We was lucky –
Lucky as not all boats have a sealed cabin
Still, The Captain told us not to worry
Said he'd been out in far worse...
“FAR WORSE!”
Said little boats like these were almost impossible to capsize
That the biggest danger was his heart giving out
Said he suffered from “severe angina”
And if that happened
Then we really would be fucked
He said we'd just drift
And if we drifted too far North
We'd be at first smashed to bits
Then swallowed whole!
We all shuddered
And stared at The Captains taut red chest
The captain turned a knob
There was a crackle
Then a voice
The Captain spoke into his radio
To a friend on another boat
A mile to our left
His friend said that the storm had passed his end
The Captain hung the radio back up
He stared forward at the crashing frothy sea
Then he said:
“It'll soon pass
two or three minutes
then, with the waters all shook up
we'll hook ourselves some nice fat cod!”
And it did soon pass
But Ash had turned the colour of translucent seaweed
He was heaving and puking away long after the sea had calmed
And so we told The Captain to return us to shore
He did
And the moment we hit shore
Like a miracle
Ash was better
“Sea sickness is strange” everyone agreed
And then Chris was laughing
His sea-sponge-bollocks turned out to be
the only catch of the day
He scooped the kitty
And bought us all a drink
And as we drank
We talked of 100 foot walls of water
And how we were all lucky to be alive
That the sea was angry at someone
And The Captain swallowed vile brown bitter
And called us “City poofters!”
He said:
“Lucky to be alive my arse! We was never in any trouble at all!”
And I don't know if we was or if we wasn't
But I do know this:
I'll never go sea-fishing again.
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