Orange Beach Vacation

Last week we took a trip to the beach. We stopped in New Orleans first. The kids hadn't been there since they were very little and they didn't remember it at all. I've always thought New Orleans was an interesting place. I thought the kids would enjoy experiencing a place that is so different from what we are used to. I was wrong. They hated it. Katie was especially vocal with her opinions. It was too hot, too crowded, too noisy, too smelly, too big, and she had to walk too much. She didn't even like the beignets. How can you not like beignets? I enjoyed mine very much and I ate hers, too. From New Orleans, we drove to Orange Beach. Everyone was happy when we got there. We spent 2 days just soaking up the sun and playing in the surf. I mainly sat on my chair under the umbrella and read my book. That's my idea of a great vacation. The rest of the family likes a little more action.

The guys wanted to go fishing and after much thought and indecision, Katie and I decided to go with them. I don't like to fish and I get motion sickness, but I thought I would enjoy just going along for the ride. Alan said we would stay in the bay where the water is less choppy and with some Dramamine we should all be fine.

So we all head out for 4 hours of fishing fun. That's Rex our captain. He's about to have a very bad day and before long he will suggest that we never get in a boat again.

The first inkling I had that things might not go well was when Rex said that nobody was catching anything in the bay. He wanted to take us 5 miles off shore to a reef where we could catch as many red snapper as we wanted. Notice the size of the boat. It was small. There were no seats. Katie and I were sitting on a cooler and Tom and Alan had to cling to the sides. Much bigger boats were passing us by on our way out. As it turns out, it didn't matter much about the size of this boat because 1 mile off shore it just died. Just stopped dead in the water. Rex had to call a friend to come get us and tow us back to shore. He called another friend, Ronnie, to bring us another boat.

So we switched boats and headed back out. A storm had blown into the gulf so we couldn't go to the reef. Rex tried really hard for us to find a place to fish near shore, but nothing was working in our favor. The current was faster than usual. Something was wrong with the anchor. Alan and I both caught bluefish, but apparently that's not a fish you keep because Ronnie threw them back. After a while, the storm passed and Rex said he was taking us to the reef.

We got out there and it was really far away from shore. I could still see the condos but they were so small. I was feeling great though. Not the least bit sea sick. Rex found the fish but the current was so strong that he was having a hard time staying over them. By the time we would get our lines cast the boat would have drifted away from the fish. He kept circling back to the fish and that was my undoing. The slightly rough water and going in circles was more than I could take. At one point I handed my pole back and just clung to the boat. Oh, I didn't tell you that this boat was smaller than the first boat and it had a flat bottom. I don't know anything about boats but I do remember thinking that I hadn't seen any other boats going out that had flat bottoms like this one.

We couldn't catch anything. Tom did catch a snapper but as soon as he pulled it in Rex said it was too small to keep and threw it right back out. We hardly got a look at it. Kaite was playing with a shark. She caught one of those pilot fish that follow sharks and the next two times she cast, something bit her line straight through. About that time, Rex decided it was time to go back. I was trying so hard not to be sick and to not tell anyone I felt sick. I was glad to be going back. We hadn't gone very far at all and this boat died. Just like the first one. I couldn't think about it too much at the time because I had to concentrate so hard not to be sick. I didn't even panic when I heard Rex on the radio say, "We have a semi-emergency. We are dead in the water and adrift in the gulf." I just climbed up in the front of the boat and laid down to wait for help to arrive. If I had been thinking clearly, I'm sure I would have dwelled on the fact that there were sharks in the water and we were in a boat that just didn't seem like a deep-sea fishing boat.

I did do a lot of praying and God answered my prayer. The boat miraculously started up and we took off toward land. I did get sick over the side of the boat before we got back. That was just the icing on the cake.

So we were out for 6 hours and caught nothing. There was a restaurant at the marina that would cook what you caught, so we had been thinking about the red snapper we would be eating for supper. It didn't happen. We got off the boat with nothing and walked with our heads down across the peir.

This is what we saw as we were leaving. Look how happy they are. It should have been us. We went back to the condo and ordered pizza.

A couple of days later we were watching Alan's favorite show, "Swamp People", and I noticed that the gator hunters used these flat bottom boats called skiffs. We looked at each other and just started laughing. That's was the kind of boat we had been in. That boat was supposed to be in the Louisanna swamp hunting gators, not 5 miles off shore with sharks circling.

Overall it was a great vacation. The kids got to go parasailing. While they were in the air, they saw more sharks, a sea turtle and pods of sting rays. We will definitely go back to the beach but I may take Rex's advice and not venture out to sea again.