On August 5, 2020 we sailed from Union Island in the southern Grenadines to Saint George’s, Grenada.  The day before we left we studied the bottom contours, consulted with my fishing guru and friend Kevin Ferrie, and decided to take a bit of an indirect route so we could fish the eastern ledge of the Windward Islands where the depth plunges from 125′ down to nearly 1000′.  It was a beautiful day with perfect sailing conditions, and as we would find out once we made enough eastward progress, perfect fishing conditions.  We were eager to put some lines in the water and boat some fish, because we had been in a fishing drought for past few months.  Focused solely on the hunt, I didn’t anticipate that a mahi would give me a valuable lesson on what it means to live.  

The detour paid off.  Once we were abeam Carriacou heading southwest we boated our first fish, a cow mahi.  She hit a big squid lure on a hand line, and I was bringing her in I asked out loud, “where’s the bull?”  As if on cue, the starboard reel started screaming.  There he was!  He hit a six inch painted cedar plug, and by the way the line was leaving the  spool I knew this was going to be a battle.  I also knew I was going to have to play him carefully.  I had lost a bull mahi a few weeks earlier on a cedar plug because the fish was able to leverage the rigid lure out of his mouth during one of his acrobatic jumps.   Determined that wouldn’t happen again, I made a mental note to be patient.  I even talked out loud to myself – “Patience, Glenn.  Easy with the drag.  Let him tire.  Keep the rod tip up.”  I did NOT want to lose this fish.  

I fought him for 30 minutes carefully working the drag setting hoping I could get him to the point when he would finally quit.

Except for a small blackfin tuna, I hadn’t caught a fish in a while.  I was out of fishing shape, and the strength of the mahi amazed me.  He was getting tired, and I was getting tired.  Despite the kids’ excitement I kept telling them it isn’t over until the fish is in the cooler.  Less than ten feet from the boat as I was pulling in the leader, he gave a final, desperate, convulsive shake and threw the hook.  Here’s the video of the moment.

The bull was exhausted.  He was on his side getting dragged towards the boat because I had, at least to this point, done everything right.  However, I misjudged my adversary. In an oft-repeated life theme when a David and Goliath meet, I let my guard down when I thought he was out of the fight.  I held all the advantages, and he had nothing but exhaustion and a frying pan in his future.  Or did he?

If you look closely you can see the cedar plug come out of his mouth and fly towards the boat.  You can also tell by our reactions we were all disappointed.  I was so frustrated I almost jumped in to grab the fish as he lingered for a few seconds on the surface before he disappeared.  But as angry as I was at the way I lost the battle, I found myself admiring that mahi.  He fought hard and never quit.

One could argue that the mistakes I made were the reason I lost.  I shouldn’t have handed the rod to Andi and reached or the leader.  I should have just kept reeling hard and dragged the fish up the sugar scoop where Andi and the kids could have wrestled it into the cooler.  Gav was standing by with the gaff, but I wasn’t confident he was strong enough to hook and drag the fish into the boat.  Plus, he wasn’t wearing a harness. But even if I had done those things, we are still assuming the fish doesn’t get any credit for his efforts.

I won’t belabor the metaphor, but it got me thinking.  It’s so easy to quit when it seems like all hope is gone. Hope, however, lives in our minds.  We create it, and we control it.  COVID, the economy, politics, media, and the deep, troubling issues with our country are all eroding our hope in the future.  I remember a local fishing expert in Virginia Beach telling me how stupid Mahi are.  “They’ll hit anything.  They’re so dumb,” he said.  Maybe that’s true.  But this unintelligent creature gave me a lesson in optimism.  It reminded me of a quote I used to have on my wall when I was in high school.

“In the final analysis, mind triumphs over matter, and the will to win is more important than the skill to win.”

That fish had a will to live.

As I replayed the Mahi spitting the lure back at me, I thought about some of the amazing stories we have read about people defying fatal diagnoses of cancer, or walking again after being told they were paralyzed for life, or winning a seemingly impossible contest (my favorite is the Miracle on Ice – February 22, 1980), or overcoming unsurmountable odds.

It isn’t over until we say it is over.  As long as we cling to the idea that we can win, then hope is not lost.  On Fearless, we are working to eliminate the word “can’t.”  As soon as you tell yourself you can’t do something, then you are correct.  That’s not what we want to teach our children.  We just celebrated our one-year anniversary of boat ownership and full-time cruising.  There were several moments along the way when we wanted to quit and sell the boat.  The boat itself was never the problem, but some of the tragedies and hardships we  witnessed and endured tested our resolve.  When we compounded those events with the underlying challenges of living on a boat, life became really hard at times.  It would have been easy to lie on our sides and let life reel us in for the kill.

In the end, I was happy for that Mahi.  He won.  But I guess in hindsight, we both won.  It’s hard not respect that kind of determination.