The Big 3-0

Yesterday was Mark's 30th birthday and to celebrate a bunch of us (Mark, Kate, Clemence, Andy, Amy, Rich and I) went down to Plymouth for some deep sea fishing. I drove down on Wednesday night for BoCaNO Plymouth style. It was such a great surprise to see Noelle at Kate's house. We went to the BBC afterwards, not Bahamas Beach Club, but British Brewing Co. I feasted on pizza and fries, which I washed down with some Vodka and coke. At midnight we all did shots to celebrate Mark's big day, even though he insisted he wasn't 30 until 9:09 AM. Afterwards I felt pretty sick, I don't know whether it was the alcohol, the food or maybe both. Somehow I managed to make it back to Kate's without getting sick.

We all woke up the next morning around six o'clock to get ready for our long day at sea. Somehow we all managed to get down to the docks before the boat left. I originally intended to share a rod with Amy, but the crew insisted I get one of my own. We boarded the boat for the hour and a half trip out to the fishing spot, we were a pretty tired bunch. It was still cloudy, but there was some clearing on the horizon. We began fishing and one by one people started catching fish. Within a half an hour the guy next to me had caught about fifteen mackerel, sometimes three at a time and all I managed to catch was the bottom, which required help from the crew and a new sinker. After we pulled up our lines and moved to a new spot everybody except Clemence and myself had managed to catch a fish. We continued to move about to different spots and the weather continued to improve. At the next stop Clemence caught a fish and she kindly yelled to me to help rub it in. I didn't catch any fish then either, although I managed to loose two more sinkers and catch Mark's line. In the end everybody caught at least one cod, but only three were keepers (>22 inches). I believe Rich caught the most fish and probably the largest variety of fishes. Mark somehow managed to catch a small lobster, which was pretty neat. Unfortunately I didn't reel in one fish the entire day, but at least I can say I have the smelly hands to prove that I did fish.

We got back to the dock and had a nice lunch at the Cabby Shack. It was funny because they had "freedom" fries on the menu and Clemence needed to get a picture of it. The sun began to fade and the clouds rolled in, I abruptly left the table and ran towards the water to get pictures of the clouds. Some of the formations were unbelievable, to the west it looked like Plymouth was getting hit by a huge tornado. Eventually I could see the rain making its way across the harbor and ran back to my car for shelter. We all said our good byes and half of us went back to Kate's house and the other half went to Boston.

We got back to Kate's house in the middle of a huge downpour and eneded up scattered about the house napping on beds, couches and even the floor. Upon waking Kate noticed a rainbow across the pond and we all went outside to take a peek. I took a bunch of pictures, at one point it even had an outside rainbow with the colors in reverse order. It was a great end to a great day.