A fishing trip to remember

Kenzie's morbid fascination watching Captain Tucker clean the fish.

Holding the Bonita.

Kenzie and the King Fish -- about 35" long.

Greg thinking, "that is the most expensive fish I have ever eaten."

It's hard to believe that we left for our trip to Florida one month ago today. I guess it's good that I am finally getting the rest of the pictures posted.

Greg fantasized about a fishing trip for months prior to leaving. He scoured Craig's List and made contacts with several people who were willing to rent us their boats while down there. Unfortunately, for one reason or another, all of those contacts fell through once we arrived.

Now, although I don't fancy myself a "fisherman," I've always thought it would be fun to "catch the big one." Somehow, however, my dreams of a charter fishing trip didn't include 5 kids and vomiting. I only envisioned the big fish.

I got a little more than I bargained for.

The day dawned beautiful -- and early. We were scheduled to depart the marina at 7am. Although I didn't express it to the kids, I knew I must have been really nervous as I had to go to the bathroom about 10 times prior to leaving.

Things started out ok...except for the fact that the boat was late and then, in our rush, we left our bag with some snacks , Greg's sunglasses, and more importantly, our sunscreen in the car.

Can you say tourists?

Long story short...the experience was not what we anticipated. Bottom line: it was an expensive way to throw up -- and yet, that is exactly what three out of the seven of us did. Setting an example for my kids (so they would know it was ok), I went first. Enough said about that.

It took about an hour to get to where the big fish were supposed to be. It was an hour of me thinking, "Can we just turn around, please?" "Should I strap a life-jacket to Cambrie's carseat?" "Wow, those waves seem really big," and, "When will this be over?" If I had felt better, I would have taken more pictures...and asked more questions. (For example, how do those "huge" waves compare to "real" waves on a day when the weather isn't perfect and the ocean isn't relatively calm.")

They say that when you are nervous you should sing a church hymn. I'm still not sure if the constant "I Am A Child of God," "Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam," and so many more was to calm the kids...or to try and calm myself. At one point, Greg the kids were in various stages of sleep and misery and Greg looked at me with an, "I'm sorry, this isn't what I expected either," look. I weakly smiled and said, "The good news is that I am trying to distract myself by blogging about this in my head."

I'll stop there. Suffice it to say that we caught a couple of big fish (notice the picture of Kenzie...the tail of the King Fish comes to her shoulders - -or about 35"), and once we found some calmer waters -- we had fun. We took our catch to a local restaurant called Crabby Bill's and they cooked it up for lunch.

Thankfully, by that time, we had our appetites back.

Would I do it again? Not without taking something for nausea first.
But hey, all's well that ends well, right?