Fisherboys--- part 1.

It was a fishing trip with some friends on a rented boat in Atlantic City. The beer, food, the large boat with a 2 day rental, bait, and all the fishing equipment made it a very expensive trip.

They left from Gardner’s Basin, and took the inboard 40 footer out about 6 nautical miles. While they sat out in the mid afternoon sun, they drank heavily and fished poorly. They decided they would drive the boat to LBI to a bar on the water where they could meet women while away from their wives, seeing the boat as a pickup method.

The wind had taken them a little south of Atlantic City, and they were all very tired, and drunk from beer and the sun. Two settled down below for a nap after all was taken care of above deck.

It was close to dusk around quarter to 8 when they pulled up anchor and started heading northwest with the wind behind them. There was a heavy haze in the sky with the sun shining through it beautiful hues of orange and red.

The man driving was the only one with previous experience on the water, and the only one that was from the region.

Two of the men were asleep in the cabin, and the third was passed out in the captain’s chair next to the driver. No one else was awake to enjoy this beautiful sunset.

His mind wandered and he finished three more beers before it became clear that the sunlit haze was turning into dark fog much faster than he realized. The pitch black of a starless cloudy night enveloped him, and the scared he felt wasn’t pushed away by the premature confidence that alcohol provides.

He looked around, and realized he wasn’t even sure where he was in relation to the shore as he hadn’t been paying attention to its disappearance into the fog. He heaved to, slowing the boat down almost to a stop as he yelled for the guy next to him to wake up, and he ran down the stairs, and into the hull to wake the other men.

As he emerged from the hull with the two sleepy hung-over men, he looked up, and the last thing lit he saw besides the boat, was the tiny fingernail moon that passed over the slow moving boat through a tiny hole in the clouds.

They were alone for as far as they could see. While the other men inquired why they were stopped, and what was wrong, he didn’t have the heart to tell them what kind of a situation they were really in.

“Where are we?”

“Are we lost?” one asked, while another took out a cigarette, and stared at him impatiently.

“You said you knew what you were doing?”

“I do know what I’m fucking doing, it is foggy need you guys to keep an eye out so we don’t run a ground.”

“He doesn’t know what he’s doing.” The man in the captain’s chair said, staring right at the driver, while talking to the other men.

“Forget it, go back to sleep, I’ll get us there.” Said the now challenged weary drunk sailor, as he returned to his post, and gunned it in the same direction he’d been heading initially.

The other two men wandered back down the stairs into the hull.

After gunning it for so long, still in pitch blackness, he slowed a little as the night turned blacker and blacker. There was one small speck of light to the south of him that he thought he could almost make out as Atlantic City. He took this as a direction to head further inward east, and he felt as if he was on the right track, and soon would see the shore line in the distance. He was quite unaware exactly how close he was to the Island of Little Beach. Not did he know that there even was an island called Little Beach.

However it does exist and they still didn’t know that as the boat smashed into sandbar about 200 yards off the shore.

The force of the impact threw the driver back into the steering wheel breaking his arm in two places, and damaging his knee. The screams from inside the hull were minor compared to the cracking noise that was clearly irreversible damage to the boat as it took on water through the buoy sized hole in the starboard side of the stern.

This was not the trip they expected, while the driver writhed in pain with his broken arm, his first priority was not to get off the boat that was in 4 feet of water, with no shore in sight.

When the two other men climbed the ladder to the top of the boat, it was only then that the driver realized they were missing one person. He yelled his name first and ran to stare over the side into the dark green water, and it was then he first noticed the blood trail on stern the lead off the boat.

The driver screamed his name, but there was no answer. One of the men in the hull found a flashlight, and ran around the front of the boat to the stern where they saw his body floating face down in the water.

As they all leaned over one side staring at the body the boat capsized in the four feet of water, and they were all thrown in as it leaned to the port side. One of them landed on top of the body, while the other two scrambled out of the way.

It teetered in the water, and they all ran/swam splashed into deeper water. The man with the broken arm screamed and yelped he couldn’t swim with his arm to the non injured man the closest to him, as their third friend jumped up gasping for air.

“My leg was stuck between Brad and the boat.” He said as he swam closer to them. “I think it broke my ankle, the whole boat came done hard on it.”

“Is Brad really dead?” the uninjured man asked.

“I don’t know, I couldn’t tell, he’s probably still pinned down there.”

“We have to get on to the shore, or back on the boat, there’s blood in the water, and it’s nighttime, we’re going to get eaten alive!” yelled the man with the broken arm.

“We can’t just leave him here, he has a family!” said the uninjured man as he let go of the man he was helping and swam towards the boat.

“No, he’s right, there are sharks out here, and if he wasn’t dead when we first saw him face down, he defiantly is now.”

“Look around you, the water is red! We have to swim in, I’m going.” the injured ankle man said, and turned his back on them and started swimming.

“WAIT! Don’t leave me, I can’t swim, I think my arm is broken!”

The third uninjured man swam back in defeat, looking around for a body he saw none and pulled the third man slowly as they swam close together.

They huffed out of breath, and the leader yelled back, to them, that he could see the beach. There was loud splashing noise behind them, and they all turned around. It was a series of un mistakable chomping sounds that made them all swim in much faster.

“Shit, those are defiantly sharks eating Brad.”

“No, they’re not….” Said the uninjured man as he swam faster, and the hurt man looked back and saw the unmistakable dorsal fins and tails swarming around something that looked like a fat dead man being eaten.

“YES THEY ARE!! Brad’s being eaten by sharks!” He screamed, and they all swam faster and didn’t speak until they pulled themselves up onto the beach.

To be continued: