Vineyard "2005"

[Swimmer]

My brother (Squid Kids Dad) and I left Sunday after a great ten days of time off, fishing, and kibitzing with people who have the same thing in common. Caught numerous albies, just not every day. Caught a few stripers, blues, and from what I was told were small northern barracuda about ten inches long on a flie. Put 700 miles on my truck mostly on the beach. Gas was $3.52 a gallon where I bought it. Not as bad as I thought it would be.

Heard some great stories and was nearby when some funny things happened. One of them was two people that we fished next too on the neach were thrown off the chappy ferry. After driving on the ferry the captain approaches the truck and says eight dollars. Trucks driver replied he only paid $5.00 that morning. Boat captain supposedly went off on thetwo guys big time. Boat captian turns boat around in mid channel and after docking the ferry where it has just embarked threw trucks driver and passenger off the ferry telling them not use the ferry again. I myself was charged several different rates for travel to and from Chappy, so I can understand why the trucks driver question the eight dollar fee. These two guys were staying with a buddie of mine, so the story as I was told seemed pretty staright up.

Also the ferry has a habit of opening 1/2 hour early to those willing to pay $7.00 more for the round trip to chappy fort a total of $20.00 for the round trip. Boat captain walks up and down the street where all the people park waiting for the ferry service to start for the day asking who si willing to pay more for the earlier service. Some people are there an hour or more early waiting. Boat captain asks other vehicles to move, so that people willing to pay the extra $7.00 dollars can get by, and drive on the ferry. That really wrankles some of the waitees. Some of the waitees who shall remain nameless stood up for all the people in line who didn't have the extra money and refused to move their first in line vehicle. Cops were called to mitigate. What pisses me off is that the ferry service couldn't survive without use of public property adjacent to ferry for cars to wait in line. Its wrong that ferry captain can dictate what happens on public property, by getting cops to move vehicles, so the ferry service can start earlier.

The other story I will tell you about was my brother being attacked by a skunk in the yard of the house where we were staying. I was in the kitchen and I heard SKD screaming. Thought he was being mugged outside somewhere. Ran outside and I saw SKD scrambling to get into truck. I was making my way to the trucks door and yelled to him what was wrong. He said something about a skunk. Told him to finish getting in truck and I would get a flashlight. I came back and the skunk had departed. Evidently SKD was squaring away some gear standing next to open passenger door when the skunk walked right between his legs and the hair on the skunked tickled one of his ankles. Skunk not spraying, priceless. SKD not stinking, priceless.

Got into he usual shoulder to shoulder albie fishing at Wasque. Not many people got pissed off. Everyone pretty much behaved.