Salt

I’m heading to Belize this week for my first attempt at saltwater fly fishing. The trip fell in to our lap, the manager of the local Orvis texted me that two people had dropped out of a TU group trip to Belize and would D and I be interested?  The price was very reasonable for what you got, four nights, 3 full guided days, and meals, beer and rum included.  Plus, you got an Orvis H3 rod (man, are they ugly rods).  I prepped myself to plead my case to D, but when I asked her if she wanted to go, she just said, “yeah, that sounds awesome.”  Oh, how I love that woman.

Since then, it’s been like kids waiting for Christmas: it seemed like it’s taking forever to get here, but also, it seems like it’s snuck up on us.  I’m writing this on Monday and we leave Saturday morning.  It’s here, it’s happening; now what?  I mostly fish for trout and bass and I’ve never been what you’d call an elegant caster.  I can usually get the fly where I want it to go, but it’s rarely pretty.  I’m a better caster when no one’s looking and when I’m not thinking about it.  Now, I’ll be trying to cast farther than I ever have to on my home water brookie streams and in front of a bunch of strangers.  This is where I plan to make use of the complimentary rum.

The trip is intended for beginner saltwater anglers, so I just need to relax and focus on that first fish on the fly in saltwater.  After that, the next fish and the next.  Being the kind of guy who thinks too much, I’m kind of worried that I’ll like it too much.  That I’ll become one of those annoying guys who can’t enjoy regular fishing-hole fishing.  The kind of guy who caught a muskie once and now can’t shut up about it and for whom brook trout and smallmouth no longer have any allure.  “I don’t even bother with these local streams anymore, let me tell you about the bonefish, he’s a wily opponent.  Did I ever mention they time I fished Belize?  Hey, where ya’ goin’?”

In preparation for this trip, this past weekend I went fishing for brook trout in a skinny mountain stream in the Virginia mountains. I thought it would be a nice bookend to the week, start it with a brookie, end it with a bonefish (actually, in my imagination, I end the week on a tarpon, but I thought that sounded grandiose so I typed bonefish).  It was a nice little brookie trip.  Early in the season there is this one window in the afternoon when you catch all your fish, but you never know when it’s going to start or stop so you need to pay your dues and fish out each cast and get the skunk off the year.

The week before there had been this fierce wind storm. Trees were down all over the woods, including a few across the trail.  I had nowhere to be so I just started walking upstream until I felt the edge of the workweek was off and started throwing my fly.  I resisted the urge to start fishing right away and just waited for some sense of calm to come over me.  Slowly, the work thoughts stopped.  I got to this one pool and remembered that last summer a snake and I surprised each other there and I had let out a yell that they probably heard up at the ranger station 3 miles away.  Seemed like as a good a place as any to get started.

I caught my fist fish of the year on a sweet little cast over a fallen tree and through a tunnel of branches. It was one of those moments when you just know you’re going to catch a fish and she’s right where she’s supposed to be.  It was such a nice cast that I immediately got overconfident and put the next cast into a tree with my back cast.  The universe maintains its balance.

Now it’s Monday and I’ve completed work on this big project I’d been working on. My job has gone from this intense work pace to this weird calm before the next crisis.  My goal is just to tread water and maintain things until I can get on that plane this Saturday.  Don’t let anything fall apart, but don’t start turning over rocks looking for trouble.  Just get through the week and pretty soon, you’ll be sipping rum and throwing Christmas Island Specials to bonefish and permit.  Now, I just have to make sure the universe plays along, no big moves, at least not for the next five days.  Come Saturday it’s put your phone into airplane mode and hope there’s no signal on the flats.  My deputy is a capable young man who I’m sure will figure it out (whatever it is).  Just get to that boarding time and then the biggest problem you face is whether you want to hit the bar or the pool first when you get off the flats.

I was kind of complaining about how crazy work got in February, but I was secretly pleased. I’ve always enjoyed my vacations more when the first twelve hours are spent in this kind of frazzled stunned silence from being overworked.  I think I like the idea that I’ve deserve my treat and that no one who’s been watching can question that I’ve earned it.  I like how the tension slowly, slowly seeps away until it dawns on me that I’m relaxed.  There are phases to it: there’s the hurry up and relax phase when I can’t get my mind to settle and I try to do too much; then there’s the “this is nice,” phase when I have to keep pointing out to D that we are in fact, relaxing; and then there’s the just being phase, where it all just feels normal and right and there’s no need to point out much of anything.  One of my favorite vacation memories was me and D sitting on a beach when I was on a break from Iraq just watching a ship travel from one side of the horizon to the other; that’s it, just sitting there drinking beer and watching a ship go by, but more than ten years later and I remember it clearly.  What had come before had been hard and what was coming next would be too, but today there was no expectations for me, but to watch that ship; I remember the color of the beach chair I was sitting in.

Part of what I like is the juxtaposition of work stress and fly fishing calm. I like that it’s chilly and a little snowy here and that’ll I’ll board a plan in the dark and in the 30s and step off in to Caribbean sunlight and the low 80s.  I love that I’ll go from having to decide what to do about a problem employee on Friday to having to decide between the fish or beef on Saturday.  Soon I’ll be in a place where as long as I don’t hook D, the guide, or myself, the trip has been a success.  Then, it will be over and I’ll be back in the stress.  The universe maintains its balance.