Bonnie unclips the leader wires and then coils them while Josh finishes “bleeding” the tuna, so it will be fit to eat, and then he starts hosing the deck. Katya announces that her back is killing her, where are the Tylenol, she’d like to help with the cleanup but isn’t up to it. In a minute Katya is below blasting Fiona Apple, her eyes closed, her leg pumping to the rhythm.
By the time we get the anchor set in the lagoon, it is dark with just a trace of rosiness to the west. We are the only boat here, as I had expected. I am on the bridge, sipping a beer, looking at the blinking light on the southern tip of Eleuthera, fifteen miles away. Between our anchored boat and the lighthouse is a terrific stretch of deep water that piles up against a long, shallow bank called “the bridge.” In the past we have caught marlin, tuna and sailfish trolling this ridge and in the shallow water we have chummed up yellowtail snapper the size of big bluefish. We almost never see another boat fishing here, occasionally a sailboat passing in the distance. It’s our ocean. We’ll troll the bridge tomorrow. I always feel good to have a fishing plan. One more night anchored here and then it’s time to head back. We’ll troll the Exuma Sound and the Tongue of the Ocean and spend two nights on Bimini visiting friends before crossing the Gulf Stream to Florida.
One of my kids turns on the stereo and Errol Garner’s voluptuous piano rolls out across the calm water toward Eleuthera and all the big fish. I am beside myself with this gentle night and his grunting over the chords, the lapping of the waves, the soft breeze coming across the island. Down below, Josh and Katya are cutting thin slices of tuna for sashimi and Bonnie is cooking rice and vegetables. It simply cannot be better than this. In the morning we’ll sleep late and then take off our clothes and swim around the boat. Before breakfast Bonnie and Katya will snorkel into shore and wander the beach looking for shells.
I’m hungry but I’m also very tired. I don’t know if I’m gonna make it until dinner. My mind drifts to the Tartar Bank sixty miles south of here off the southern coast of Cat Island. The Tartar Bank is a mesa that rises from the deep ocean to a depth of eighty feet. There are always big seas and working birds above wahoo and tuna, sometimes marlin. A big population of tiger sharks feeds under the tuna—you must take a fish very quickly. No other boats around. Next summer we’ll troll the Tartar Bank.
Something is slamming in my head. I have never heard such a racket before. A terrible crash, and the chug of a big engine. A rhythm to it: CRASH, CHUG, CRASH, CHUG, CRASH, CHUG. I have heard this sound before. A pile driver. Also the straining lifting hauling sounds of huge derricks and tractors. When I was a kid Dad and I would stand next to building sites in the city, watch the heavy equipment work.
I climb out of my bunk and walk outside into the cockpit in my underwear. Thirty feet from our bow is an enormous barge with a pile driver working on one end. On the shore, fifty yards away, there are derricks lifting rocks and tractors pushing sand. We must have dropped anchor in front of the wrong island. There are a dozen dormitory-like buildings on shore, a church going up, many stores, a straw market, men in hard hats rushing up and down the white beach in jeeps. Workers in a skiff are hanging a “predator net” with designer floats right in front of my bow. Everything on the land is painted in playful zesty colors.
Almost immediately a man comes by the Ebb Tide in a Boston Whaler, a British fellow, the construction manager. He is a pleasant guy. He explains that Holland America lines has leased Little San Salvador from the Bahamian government and they are putting up a replica of a Bahamian village. Within two months thousands of tourists will be walking the beaches, visiting the imitation straw market and Bahamian church, eating surf and turf onshore—they can cook for two thousand at a sitting. A big attraction will be the game fishing. In the afternoon, before returning to the ship anchored off the reef, vacationers can board a fleet of swift fishing boats and troll the virginal stretch of ocean between here and Eleuthera.
I am bemused by all this activity. I smile and accept his invitation to have a tour of the new facility. He seems like a good guy, genuinely enthusiastic about the transformation of the island, as though he has groomed a savage land. But I can’t help myself and I mention to the Englishman there is perhaps one problem. With many boats trolling and chumming the area, the fish will soon be gone—the Holland America line will have the white beach and colorful village but the surrounding water will be dead. “Do you think so?” he asks mildly. And already I sense the weakness in my thinking. Putting up an imitation Bahamian village is fast, relatively inexpensive work, a lot of plywood. There are many more islands.
It is about five in the afternoon and we are running across the Shallow Sea between the Berry Islands and the Bimini chain at sixteen knots approaching the Gun Cay Passage—the same narrow cut where we almost died in the night with Abe three decades earlier. At low tide we have only four and a half feet under the hull, but I’ve been through this area many times and I know that we won’t hit bottom. The surface is perfectly calm, without a ripple, which magnifies the ledges, starfish, a crawfish walking on the bottom, cudas here and there. Watching the passing bottom is mesmerizing but also a little disorienting, the bottom seems too close. When we enter the passage I run near the Gun Cay side and pass the island twenty feet away, where the water is deepest. I notice the flock of birds working a mile offshore. Josh is on the bow watching the reef below. He signals for me to slow down, but I keep steaming at sixteen knots, about as hard as I dare push the old Hatteras. For some reason he doesn’t trust my eyes, which I find annoying. Josh shouts for me to slow down but I ignore him. He doesn’t realize that I have been through this area of reefs and ledges hundreds of times with Bonnie in the twenty-footer.
When the depth recorder marks eighty feet I turn north and Bimini comes into view, just another nine miles to go. I can’t wait. I’m rushing back to the island where we were kids. I wonder if the South Bimini house is still standing. Probably someone filled it up with marijuana, funny idea. After hurricanes and drug wars, Bimini persists, dead ahead, beautiful as the first day I saw it emerging from the sea. So much promise.
Look at the Big Game Fishing Club. They’ve put in staunch concrete pilings. The hotel is all painted, the palm trees groomed and swaying in the evening breeze by the pool. Isaac is serving piña coladas in the Gulf Stream Bar and Restaurant. He used to serve drinks to Abe. My mother always hated these bourgeois places by the sea where Abe ordered lavishly and gave big tips. I love them.
The following morning there is a light breeze and a vibrant blue sky overhead, a perfect fishing day. At the Big Game Club the bonefishermen are sitting on the wall waiting for their charters to finish breakfast in the chilly dining room. Bonefish Rudy, Action Jackson and Cordell are itchy to get going. I’m half-asleep in the stern of my boat, sipping a cup of tea. I can see Ansil Saunders walk down the dock, climb into his skiff, arrange his two chairs in the bow, check the condition of his shrimp. He tosses some dead ones over the side.
Ansil is still beautiful to look at, lithe and strong, though he is almost seventy. No one can find them like Ansil.
Up and down the dock, the mates are finished rigging baits and putting the big coolers on board. Maybe someone will hook a marlin today. One after the next the enormous diesels come alive with a roar. Same sound as when I was a kid. My father shakes me gently, “Wake up, boy.” I am trying to sleep late after pounding on the conga drums for Sexy Mama until three A.M. at the Calypso Club. I had them standing and cheering. I was Armando Peraza. But I couldn’t tell my dad. I hope he slept through the night and didn’t notice my bunk was empty. “It’s time to go fishing, boy.” I smile at him. We are in this fish hunt together. I’ll climb the tower and find the birds, we’ll raise one. There is still hope, and fishing is another name for hope.
Acknowledgments
I COULDN’T HAVE WRITTEN THIS BOOK WITHOUT BONNIE. SHE HAS been a creative and tireless collaborator. Every time I got confused or bogged down, she pointed the direction. Bonnie fixed my sentences
. She encouraged and inspired my writing days.
So much thanks to Margaret Johns, for her support over the years. For readings, advice and pep talks I am indebted to Patty Bryan, Mike Bryan, Paulette Chernoff, Tom Chernoff, Steve Hanks, Lynn Mullins, Jeff Newman, Paul Pines, Charles Russell, Steve Salinger, Joe Spieler, Josh Waitzkin and my smart savvy Katya Waitzkin.
When I began writing this book, I believed, I suppose naively, that I remembered my life. I quickly learned that I recalled moments, like buoys in the ocean. But often there was a problem getting from one marker to the next. Conversations with my mother were indispensable. Not only did she remember scenes but her sense of color and juxtaposition and her deep emotion brought me back to my childhood and adolescence. Also I am indebted to Celia Blum, Leon Conn, Betty Holiday, Chet Mudick, Leatrice Rose, Joe Stefanelli and Laurie Ziman for sharing memories. Howie Blum helped me recall the sounds and smells of the plant, and Dad’s rage, largesse and humor sitting at his desk above the small Lee Products shop.
Much gratitude for my agent, Binky Urban, who has urged me to write about my father for more than a dozen years and encouraged me through the drafts.
Wendy Wolf, my editor at Viking, did smart careful work, made tough suggestions, nudged me and became a pal.
After reading an early draft of this book, Barbara Grossman said to me that for perhaps the first time, she was moved to admire her own father’s business life. That meant a lot.
About the Author
Fred Waitzkin was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1943. He went to Kenyon College and did graduate study at New York University. His work has appeared in Esquire, New York magazine, the New York Times Sunday Magazine, the New York Times Book Review, Outside, Sports Illustrated, Forbes, the Huffington Post, and the Daily Beast, among other publications. His memoir, Searching for Bobby Fischer, was made into a major motion picture released in 1993. His other books are Mortal Games, The Last Marlin, and The Dream Merchant. Recently, he has completed an original screenplay, The Rave. Waitzkin lives in Manhattan with his wife, Bonnie, and has two children, Josh and Katya, and two grandsons, Jack and Charlie. He spends as much time as possible on the bridge of his old boat trolling baits off distant islands with his family.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
Copyright © 2000 by Fred Waitzkin
Cover design by Greg Mortimer and Mauricio Díaz
ISBN: 978-1-5040-4302-1
This edition published in 2017 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
180 Maiden Lane
New York, NY 10038
www.openroadmedia.com
FRED WAITZKIN
FROM OPEN ROAD MEDIA
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