A week of firsts

This past week was a week of firsts.

1. The family went out on a little boat trip with Suzanne and the Earley children. On our way from West Falmouth to Meganssett I saw a boat approaching and I just knew that we were going to get boarded. Long story short we did not have a third adult life jacket so the Coast Guard was going to follow us in so that we could get one. The funny thing is that I knew this would not be the case. Tommy Earley was on the boat which meant we really could not go that fast. After about 2 minutes of following us they pulled up beside us and said they weren't going to follow us in.

2. Mike Earley and I went out on a fishing trip that we turned into beer drinking, sightseeing, maybe a little fishing trip. When Mike was gassing up his boat the gas overflowed a little bit so Mike knew he had a full tank of gas. With a full tank, flat calm seas and a twelve pack of beer we decided to head towards Cuttyhunk. A first for both of us. On the way there we came accross some unorganized bird action which turned out to be a few schools of schoolies. Mike got hold of a nice healthy schoolie. We then road south and we did hit a little fog here and there, but we made it to Cuttyhunk and went in to the harbor. It looks like a snapshot of 1910 if you ignore all the boats in the harbor. On the way back we stopped by some fishy looking rocks just north of Quicks' Hole. I prophesized that I would catch a 32" bass and sure enough I was able to bring in a 31" keeper. We would have thrown the fish back, but unfortunately the hook was caught up in the gills so bad that by the time we were able to free it the fish was severely bleeding.

3. Yesterday morning I went on a fishing trip with Mike Kennedy. We were headed towards the Elizabeth Islands for the hopes of some bass, but the expectation of bluefish. I was right on with this prediction other than the fact that I missed about 4 bass hits near Quicks and Cuttyhunk. There were nice schools of bluefish in Quicks' Hole and Cuttyhunk. We could have stayed all day and caught hundreds I am sure.

Yesterday afternoon our family boated around to Washburn Island. We met the Fish/Lott family and did a geocache. We tied up and ate dinner before attempting to beat the sunset. On the outgoing trip it was a little rougher than we had hoped so we left an hour and a half to make the return trip. Vineyard Sound was much better on the way back with 2 foot waves, but very navigable. As soon as we hit Woods Hole the seas were down to nothing and we were pleased to see that they were the same on the Buzzards Bay side. This was lake calm and we were actually able to open the boat all the way up and we were home in no time at all.