Captain's Blog: Keepin' It Reel
Grandpa's Submarine, the J.B. Weld II & Forty Years of Baja
My first trip to Baja was forty years ago.
Tod had been going much longer.
In 1968, when he was just seven years old, Tod helped his grandfather push an abandoned late-1950s Airstream trailer into a sand dune along the Sea of Cortez, south of San Felipe. It sat only a few steps from the high-tide mark, and over the years the Baja wind piled sand higher and higher against its silver sides.
That old Airstream became Grandpa's place in Baja and, eventually, part of our family's story.
Years later, when our youngest daughter, Clair, was about six, we were all staying there. One afternoon, Clair had done something that required a little motherly intervention. I have absolutely no recollection of what she'd done, but apparently I considered it serious enough to send her away to contemplate her crimes.
“Listen, young lady. You get yourself back into Grandpa's trailer right now and wait for me. I'm going to come talk to you about what you did.”
She looked down, suitably remorseful.
And stood there.
And stood there.
Finally I said, “What are you waiting for? Get yourself into Grandpa's trailer!”
She looked up at me with enormous, completely bewildered blue eyes.
“Where's Grandpa's trailer?”
I laughed.
“Clair, where do you think we've been staying for the past week?”
I pointed toward the Airstream.
She looked at me like I was an idiot.
“That's not Grandpa's trailer. That's Grandpa's submarine.”
And then I turned and looked at it through her eyes, and melted.
There it was: a great silver vessel half buried in a Baja sand dune, its rounded body sticking out of the sand and a little round porthole window in the door.
Of course it was a submarine.
The J.B. Weld II
Eventually Grandpa sold the submarine, and Tod and I moved a few campos farther south to Campo Coloradito, where we bought our own old trailer—a single-wide built somewhere around 1967.
It had a working kitchen, living room with bunk beds built into the walls, and a few dinky bedrooms, but nobody went to Baja to sleep inside.
We usually had anywhere from eight to eighteen people with us, and at night everybody dragged their bedding outside onto the enormous patio with a partial ramada roof. Kids, grown-ups, everybody—one giant puppy pile under the Baja night sky.
Somewhere during those years came one of our great family fishing expeditions.
Our boat for this trip was the J.B. Weld II.
There was, of course, a J.B. Weld I.
It sank.
The II was an ancient fourteen-foot aluminum boat that we literally dragged across the lava shoreline to get into the Sea of Cortez. Calling it seaworthy would be generous. It leaked like a colander. There weren't enough fingers aboard to plug all the holes.
It wasn't named J.B. Weld for nothing. For those of you who don't know what J.B. Weld is, it's typically sold at hardware stores as a very inexpensive alternative to torch welding. We used it as a solution to the multitude of holes in our aluminum boats.
On this particular day, Tod and I went out with Jessie and George, who were only about fifteen and sixteen years old.
Four people. Four fishing poles. One tiny leaking boat.
We putt-putt-putted our way out onto a flat Sea of Cortez. Even with almost no chop, the boat sat so ridiculously low that water still kept spilling over the sides with the smallest movement onboard.
We were, technically speaking, sinking.
Naturally, we went fishing.
We put four lines in the water.
And then Tod's reel went:
ZIZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ!
That line was ON FIRE.
“EVERYBODY REEL IN!”
The rest of us monkey-rolled around the little boat, trying not to capsize while we retrieved three lines and tucked the poles along the sides.
Tod was fishing with only 15-pound-test line, and whatever was on the other end of it was HUGE. Fifteen-pound test was one thing. The zizzzzzzzzz on the other end of it was quite another.
He would reel it in.
ZIZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ!
It would run back out to sea.
He'd work it back.
It would dive again.
Eventually we could see something enormous rolling in the distance—big and black and shiny.
A seal?
A shark?
A manta ray?
What in God's name had we caught?
Tod kept playing it, patiently working this monster closer and closer until we realized we had another problem.
No net.
No gaff.
Nothing aboard that little aluminum boat capable of landing this fish.
That's when Jessie sat up straight and shouted out:
“I know! Bring it alongside the boat, Tod. When it comes up and gulps for air, I'll stick my arm down its throat and pull it into the boat. George, Doreen—you grab the back of my pants so I don't fall over.”
I believe I was the only person aboard the J.B. Weld II who recognized some potential shortcomings in this plan.
“NO! It could bite your arm off! We could all capsize!”
Tod and George considered this for a split second, and they both exclaimed:
"Excellent idea!"
So Tod gently coaxed that fish toward the boat.
Closer.
Closer.
Until approximately 65 pounds of black sea bass rolled alongside us.
Jessie stood.
The boat started rocking like crazy.
George and I lunged for the back of his pants.
Jessie raised one arm dramatically toward the Baja sky and screamed:
“ARRRRRRGH!”
And shoved his arm all the way to his elbow down the fish's throat.
A second later, Jessie fell backward into the boat with 65 pounds of black sea bass attached to his arm.
Jessie was screaming.
Tod was screaming.
George and I were screaming.
And little Clair, watching us from the shore, was screaming back at us.
The fish was flip-flopping everywhere.
And somehow, miraculously, the J.B. Weld II stayed upright on the Sea of Cortez.
We eventually made it back to shore. The boys dragged that enormous fish up onto the beach; we filleted it, and that night it fed fourteen people some of the best fish tacos we'd ever eaten.
Dinner eventually quieted down.
And that's when little Clair, who had watched the entire spectacle from shore—screaming and laughing right along with us—looked proudly at her father and announced:
“We sure had fun catching that fish together, didn't we, Dad?”
Everybody lost it.
She wanted so badly to have been part of that adventure.
And, really, I suppose she was.
Keepin' It Reel
That's the Baja I remember.
Not resorts. Not room service. Not carefully planned vacations.
Old trailers buried in sand dunes. Sleeping outside under a ramada with fifteen of your favorite people. Dragging questionable aluminum boats across lava rock. Desert winds, salt water, fishing line screaming off a reel—and children growing up believing submarines lived in the desert and that if they cheered loudly enough from shore, they helped catch the fish.
Tod spent a lifetime loving Baja.
He loved the hiking, the snorkeling, the desert, the sea—and especially fishing. He was forever chasing the bull dorado, and no matter how big the last one had been, he was absolutely certain the next one would be bigger.
Forty years after my first trip south, I sat down and started drawing a fish.
A dorado.
Then came an old Baja trailer, the desert, the Sea of Cortez, fishing gear, a battered tackle box, and all those little pieces of a life lived between sand and salt water.
And somewhere along the way, I realized I wasn't really drawing a fish.
I was drawing us.
Keepin' It Reel is my little nod to old Baja—to Grandpa's submarine, the J.B. Weld II, Tod's never-ending pursuit of the next big fish, and the generations of our family who learned to love that strange, harsh, beautiful place.
Some memories fade.
Some become family legends.
And some, apparently, end up on a hoodie.
Remember, be kinder than necessary, especially to yourself.
Take care,
dz