Once a year during our family gathering on some coastal area we charter
a fishing boat for some off-shore fishing. One year when that place was
in South Carolina we charter a 52 ft sport fishing boat.

This was the first time I ever got sea sick. The seas were topping out
at 8 ft and the captain was very eager to get us to were we were going
to fish for the day. I think he might have had the whole boat out of the
water at times. I any case the "jumping boat" for two hours finally got
to me. While we were doing that I saw a 19inch tv in the salon take
flight and crash on the floor.

This was followed by the wheel on the fly bridge falling apart that
ended with the captain steering by a single stainless spoke sticking out
of the hub. This looked pretty dangerous as I though he would get
impaled on the thing. They attempted to remove the wheel from the lower
helm, but could not remove it.

I then took a snooze and woke up to silence and the boat at anchor.
Feeling better I came out and found that one engine had the exhaust
bellow disentigrated and the port was stuffed with rags to keep the
water from coming in. Diesel soot was everywhere in the engine
compartment and the other engine had just stopped. They were not sure why.

Then the girl that my brother are dating whipped out a banana and
started eating it. The captain put out a yell and threw it overboard :-)
This was the first time this lady had gone out with us and she had never
heard the banana curse before.

We had two mates on board and one decided to play a Tom Petty CD. Of
course the first song was "Break Down"

The bow was pointed into the waves and we kept fishing. And stated
catching a few fish. Nothing to write home about. But we had not caught
anything time this point. Apparently they had been fishing for a few
hours while I was snoozing.

Well Seatow arrived at dust and I had to give the guy a lot of credit.
As he came out the boat would vanish between the waves. And then pop
over the next crest. I was a small pilot house type boat with two big
outboards on it.

After they hooked up we had a real nice tow into the harbor by
moonlight. The seas calmed down and it was really a nice slow ride back
to the dock. Our trip that was suppose to go from 6am to 6pm ended
around 2am the following morning.

Now I am not saying it was because of the bananas. Most likely a lack of
maintenance during the busy part of the charter season and the fact that
one of the mates forgot to fuel up the tank for the starboard engine I
am sure played a role. ( this was figured out the following day)

But the trip did get much more pleasant for me after that banana went
over the side :-)

Capt Jack R..




That's amusing to say the least. I remember eating bananas on the family
boat frequently when I was a kid, my mom loves the things. I don't
recall ever having any major problems but then if one knows of a
superstition, it's easy to connect anything that goes wrong with it.
Personally, I don't believe in any of that stuff.