After spending the weekend watching Discovery shows on the deadly Humboldt Squid, I get a call Monday, from Michael, asking me if I want to go fishing for giant squid. Yes! It was an unquestionable, resounding, unquestionable, unequivocal yes. I hadn't the slightest idea that there were giant squid off the San Diego coast.
Friday - sunset at the docks in Mission Bay - the last moments of normalcy for the next 24 hours.
The squid, we were told, are about 8 miles off shore - a 40 minute boat ride. During my Rhode Island summers I unloaded many a lobster boat and had a number of opportunities to go out on boats. Never once did I fall seasick. This trip seasickness greeted me like an old friend - and before we even reached our destination. First that day's food came up and out, followed by everything that was leftover from earlier in the week. Even a ginger ale, that I was hoping would quell my angry stomach, came up immediately. All that was left now were major organs.
As the boat hit the 8 mile mark, the engine was halted and fishermen dropped their lines into the blackness that engulfed the boat. 70 people crammed along the starboard side of the vessel. Lines entangling and men dancing around one another not so gracefully. The back corner of the boat was like a sardine tin of grown men. Fifteen minutes into the fishing and only one squid made its way to the boat's deck - compliments of two ten-year old hispanic boys. Undeniably their first giant squid catch.
Then, all of a sudden, "squid hit the fan." Poles bowed and excitement rose. It took every ounce of the fishermen's might to reel their lines a couple of inches. Long battles with these squids ended with fishermen yelling, "Color," as their squid surfaced. That's when someone from the crew would rush over, long wooded pole and hook in hand. The squid stood no chance against the hook, but sprayed water and ink like their life depended on it - and it did. Even the second deck of the boat wasn't immune from the shooting water and ink. Soon squid were hitting the deck with a slap and thud. Slap! Thud! From every direction. It wasn't long before the entire gray deck bled black. Fishermen whizzed and shuffled past me in every direction. My head swimming in a sea of nausea and my stomach spinning like a tumble dry cycle. The fishermen stuffed their catch into burlap sacks that lined the center portion of the vessel. For 45 minutes the chaos, excitement and danger (a squid's beak can snap a wooden broom handle and easily a finger or two) continued. It was an adrenaline rush that left everyone smiling wildly. Less than an hour of fishing yielded 420 giant squid.
It was a long, slow ride back to shore, timed out to enable the crew to filet every last squid. Chop - off goes the head. Chop - off goes the tenticles. Slice - off goes 26 of the 28 layers of membrane and skin. In the end, there were probably enough squid filets to supply all San Diego's restaurant needs for the weekend or longer.
That night, at home in bed, I woke up at 2am feeling like I was still in the ship's galley. The swooshing, spinning and dizziness was inescapable until well into the next day.
All in all, giant squid fishing an incredible experience, and I would go again, but not without dramamine.
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