Osprey - 6-25-2012 at 04:19 PM
First: Get well Dennis. This snapshot of the future is for Cypress.
This is chapter 19 of my book about the future of the SOC.
2030
A Good Charter
Juan Diego was not quite awake as he drove north toward the hotel at just after four in the morning. The four-lane highway needed some repair and he
was falling into pot holes he would usually miss when alert and on a mission. Weather and heavy truck traffic punched potholes faster than they
could be patched on both highways that stretched the length of the Baja California peninsula. His EARBUZ, the electronic micropager in his earring,
had gone off at three. The three quick beeps told him the satellite had picked up some fish and he should hurry to the hotel in case of a charter
opportunity.
If the fish were real and close enough he would be off the beach before a chance to eat so he popped a breakfast burrito into the microwave and took
a quick shower. White hotel uniform shorts and matching boat shirt were all he needed to wear today; sunglasses, smokes, wallet. He had not worked
in over three weeks and needed the money. Better not count the dollars until he was on the boat with a dead sure charter. There had been many false
starts in the past few months; computer glitches, fish-sized flotsam and electronic sightings on game fish much closer to his competitors. Some
resorts to the north had hydrojets as fast as the one he captained at Tres Palmas. It would be nice to boat a couple of marlin to add to the catch
list for his extensive resumé.
The resume was almost ready for the printer. It was intended to land him a job on the islands to the south, Socorro Island in the tiny Mexican
archipelago with the tongue-twisting name the gringos had such trouble with, Revilligigedo. The Gulf of California (Sea of Cortez) charter boats
fished, on average, one day a month; island boats fished ten days a month. There would be less clients because the place was so remote but he could
expect more charter pay and more tips than he could ever make in the Gulf.
Maria Castro, a friend who ran the library system for the Buena Vista sector villages, had been helping him put the resume together. They had been
working on it for months..not a huge volume of work; only a few pages, carefully worded and illustrated to best show his language skills (he had
studied conversational language in English, German, Korean, and Japanese), his knowledge of ocean conditions, depths, currents, seasonal wind patterns
in a charter circle of about 250 miles around the small island chain. The seven-plus years he had spent on camaroneras, shrimp trawlers; stun barges,
long liners, were mostly in the northern gulf.
In `09 the big wire nets split the gulf into two big traps, north from Isla San Esteban to the Colorado river and south to the open sea beyond Cabo
San Lucas at the end of peninsula. Socorro Resorts could care less about his experience in the gulf, hundreds of miles from where he would charter.
Too bad. He had to start all over. He knew every part of the 68,000 square miles of the Sea of Cortez. Destined from the start to be the empty
basket it is today. It is, after all, a big, natural fish trap. Just as in the old days when schools of hungry roosterfish would chase huge clouds
of lisa, mullet, into small bays, trap them against the shore and decimate the schools in mere minutes, it became all too easy for modern fishing
methods to do the same on a larger scale. It did not take minutes, it took a few short decades but the result was the same.
Juan Diego thought, as did so many others who fished the Gulf, it was miraculous that small relic singles or schools of tuna, marlin, sailfish, sharks
and dorado, dolphin fish, pelagic fish which swam from ocean to ocean could run the gauntlet. Once they left the Pacific, the world's largest body of
water, and headed up the gulf they faced a deadly number of high tech, time-tested fish-killing boats, nets and stun arrays.
There was no time to shave; the short stubble on his round, prominent chin was hardly noticeable -- at least he hoped Jorge, the old Gringo
dispatcher, wouldn't notice it in the dim light of predawn activities Like most Mexican fishermen his rugged face carried more years than he had
lived and labored. Juan Diego had the kind of hair movie starlets would kill for; it never had to be combed or even brushed -- the black-in-cobalt
liquid obsidian fell into place in small delicate curls, softening his craggy features. Later it would spin each light bundle caught up in the tangle
as though in constant movement.
At 42 he was fit but chunky, tall like his father with the hard, dark eyes of his older brother Miro. Eyes that grew cloudy and dull from too many
hours on Maria's computer straining to understand "Light Commercial Marine Diesel Engines","Marine Accidents/Survival Techniques"and "Advanced GPSS
Coastal Navigation". He often smiled at the thought of his father, Edelmiro, if he were here to see this stuff. How he would marvel at all this
modern electronic gadgetry. The old man might be proud of him if he could land a good job on the islands to the south. His father's words on the
'cell hung in the air "as long as you're working, not drinking so much, not in jail again". The captain had more than his share of trouble when Josie
Wallace, his one true love, got married two years ago. He stayed drunk for two months and was in jail twice, once in Santiago, once in Cabo San
Lucas.
There were no fish around the area of his father’s former home, San Lorenzo, on the Mexican mainland; not in the river, not in the bay, not along the
outside shore. If Miro had not come for him, had not gotten the job for him at the fish farm Edelmiro would have been reduced to working for minimum
wages with the railroad. They had kept the railroad spur open and operating from Culiacan to his little village of El Dorado and a longer one to the
estero at Bahia Altata. Edelmiro was not cut out for walking track. His feet were perfectly formed for good traction to push boats into the sea.
They were wide and flat for the business of holding in place coils of rope and fishing line in the bottoms of boats. The toes were short and bunched
together to avoid snagging by rusty hooks and swivels; spaces between them custom made to hold strands of torn and tattered nets, mended carefully and
methodically as and when rents appeared.
Juan Diego was not yet born when his father went, alone, up the Rio San Lorenzo, into the steamy jungle to rescue his mother, bother and sister from
the sinister grasp of his mother’s evil witch of an aunt, Tia Delia. His father had told the story in striking detail a thousand times around the
table at meal time and over countless campfires on the beach. With a barren present, a future full of things he did not comprehend, it was necessary
for the old man’s mental well-being to stay in the past where he could count every leaf on the tree and the shadows had sharp, clear edges, he knew
the names of the things around him.
Juan Diego’s ’12 Yamaha light-duty truck was rusting badly and needed new rings, maybe new valves. It was the last of the old rotaries and parts
were hard to find. Shade tree mechanics in the area kept the Fords, Axioms and Nissans running up and down Highway One like so many army ants. When
he started working for the hotel in 2024, six years ago, he drove a hotel truck but after only four months on the job he was told the company policy
was no more company vehicles for fishing operations except for the head mechanic and the dispatcher. He would not need a vehicle in the tiny fishing
resort, Perico, on Isla Socorro; he could sell the little Yamaha and throw himself a party for a few days with the pretty hoars at El Zacatel..
Juan Diego stepped into the small dispatch room. The old man was waiting for him.
"You mighta got lucky today, stud. The're close, they move like striped marlin and we got six hot shots signed up." They both smiled as they looked
at the SATCHART; only two or three pods of whales, probably humpbacks, would be near his track and the wind was light, out of the west at only 4
knots. Victor picked these six fish up around two thirty; they have been traveling south and east. The boat's ready to roll. Punch in the fix, wipe
the moisture out of the Digicam housings, put in some fresh Microdiscs, check all the bait and fishing gear and Little Victor will do the rest".
Juan Diego was anxious to be on the boat and a good distance from this small office when the clowns drew the balls. He had seen it many times; at
these prices, the look in the eyes of the fishermen when they drew high numbers was like looking into the eyes of a beached and bloated pufferfish on
the third day under the tropical sun. They all knew that the time-compressed, actual hooks-in-the-water opportunity, when the boat got to the
satellite fix, favored the guys who drew the number one and two balls perhaps 50 to 1 over the remaining fisherman. The rules were simple and well
known. Jorge would go over them with the clients anyway; it was one of Maura's rules she was particularly fussy about. Five minutes after the
captain had the bait or lures riding just the way he liked for the conditions, he would set the fish clock -- any hookup in the following 30 minutes
belonged to the fisherman with ball number one, the next half hour, number two fisherman and so on. Rarely would the sequence repeat, given time,
distance and opportunity for this potential three-hour window of joy or sorrow.
The boat was new, a 41 foot Delphin with surface and hydrofoil capabilities. On flat days top speed was just under 70 MPH, when stepped down to
surface the craft could troll at any speed over seven knots. The captain liked the sonar and video setups and he liked the fact that this particular
boat had a bridge with a hatch -- he could close the hatch and get away from the loud ones or the drunk ones or the ones who wanted to practice their
Spanish and just chat...the worst. He loved the surface sonar -- he could cut the gain down to kill the wake noise, pick up the head-on sonar picture
of the fish following the lure and just a small turn was enough to give him a full-body picture of the prey.
He pulled the scrap of paper from the pocket of his jeans, punched into the GPSS Navigator the latitude and longitude of the fix he had written down
at the office. A great run. The fish were just north and west of Farallon Rocks; just over 200 kilometers from the dock here at Palmas bay. Close
to Topolobampo if big winds came up, pretty far from Loreto's boats and way too far for the Hydros of Guaymas or Mazatlan. A flat June day, a full
boat and no competition. Maybe big, big tips coming his way.
They could afford big tips. These were all rich guys. The price for fishing was $l,000 U.S. per drawn ball. Twice in the last two years Juan Diego
had chartered for guys who took the boat out solo and bought all six balls. You would think that after a $6,000-plus day they might skimp but he had
gotten some killer tips from these ricos, rich ones. Propinas, tips, were not his only concern today. He could not stifle his curiosity about his
guests; where were they from, what did they do for a living, where did they get the money? The favored trolling bait was frozen flying fish at $60
each, lunch was about $25 per person and who knows how much for beer, booze and munchies. The fight recordings, the Minidiscs would bring in $70
each.
[Edited on 6-25-2012 by Osprey]
Udo - 6-25-2012 at 05:10 PM
SHEESH!
That's one helluva expensive fishing trip, and that's only 18 years away. Fishing by GPS, what will they come up with next!
Whatever will happen to instinct and local knowledge?
See you in two days, buddy!
I'm counting down the hours!
[Edited on 6-26-2012 by Udo]
4baja - 6-27-2012 at 06:54 PM
that took 4 beers to read, please keep it shorter for my ol ladies sake.