Some of you know that I have a propensity for printmaking. Currently I am in a learning curve for wood engraving. This picture commemorates an occurrence that took place just off Saints Landing in the beginning years of the Striperheads experience.
Some of you may also remember the little 14 foot freshwater skiff that Aaron Adams and I would venture out in, and which we lovingly named "The Tin Cup". I have never much liked the trek from the boat launch to the Brewster Flats in rough seas, because of the distance from the launch. But one day, the seas were tame enough to let Captain Aaron "Ahab" Adams and I to venture out in the diminutive craft.
From the perspective of the wading Flats Area, off to the right and farther out into Cape Cod Bay, was the confluence of three channels draining the outgoing tide from both Saints Flat and Breakwater Beach. The area was such a turmoil of churning currents and rollicking standing waves, it resembled Odysseus's monster, Charybdis.
Suddenly, like an apparition, a large, looming 18 foot fin emerged from the tumultuous roil of water, rolled purposely from west to east. The tip of the monstrous appendage left an arching trail of water droplets, iridescent in the setting sun, before re-immersing into the black depths of the briny apocalypse.
This can't be good, I thought.
Seemingly to prove me right, Super- Biologist Aaron leaped up, balanced on the 4 square inch front corner of the bow, and pointed toward the creature's spot of re-entry, and shouted "Follow that Fin".
"Like Hell I will!" I yelled back, swinging the tiller around to start back away from a watery grave. Then disaster struck. We never knew what hit us.
We managed to swim through the whirl-pooling rubble to the exposed flats, and kissed the sand. We never saw the tin cup again. The next day, the Brewster Times confirmed the unusual sighting of a huge, light colored Sperm Whale in Cape Cod Bay.
I guess I am lucky to be alive. Today, Captain Adams chases whales in Florida, and calls them Tarpon.
Oh My God! The bullshit is flowing!!! Well, it was a right whale, so much smaller than a sperm whale. But now we have confirmation of Mr. DiCerbo's tendency for, er, um, stretching the truth. So now we know that his 36" striper was really only 13"!!
ReplyDeleteCapt Ahab
Maybe I have a future as a writer!!
ReplyDeleteSome of the Cape experiences certainly offer fooder without much fictionalizing...
I haven't even written about the attempts on my life yet. :^)