My father was, is, and forever will be a fisherman. He was never a specialized type of fisherman, such as a fly fisherman or a bass fisherman. He did it all. From my earliest childhood memories, we were fishing for salmon in the ocean, up the rivers, in the bay, and in small streams. We fished for trout in lakes and rivers. We fished for bass, bottom fish, shad, perch, albacore, snapper, cabezon, and lingcod. At the age of five, I remember crawling along rocky ocean cliffs looking for a place to land some rockfish, being carried by my dad through the most precarious places.
If you were one of his sons (and he had three of them), you fished with him. This was not an option – it was your birthright. It meant one more pole in the water. One more chance for him to bring home a fish.
Weekends were often spent in a small boat fishing from sunrise to sunset. He was never into fancy boats. He was only into catching fish. This meant taking our small aluminum boat where it shouldn’t be taken – into the ocean to fish for salmon and bottom fish.
I enjoyed fishing on the ocean on the extremely rare occasion that the fishing was good and the ocean was flat. I had learned that once we crossed the bar (leaving the safety of the bay and entering the Pacific Ocean), there was no turning back. We were going to be fishing for a long time. If the fishing was good, time would pass by more quickly. If the fishing was slow, time slowed with it to a crawl. Oftentimes we had to wait for the tide to change before we could even consider crossing the bar to get back into the safety of the bay.
One particularly dreary day we ventured across the bar in our little boat in search of salmon. It was as rough as my dad was willing to risk. It was just the two of us and as we went up and down the waves I scanned the horizon for any boats that were close to being as small as the one we were floating in. I did not see any. After a while, I did not see any other boats anywhere. You can feel really small and alone in a 12-foot boat in a rough ocean where you can see neither shore nor any other boats. Today the ocean seemed incredibly vast and powerful.
Catching salmon was fun, but trying to net a salmon was a stressful endeavor. If was my dad was trying to land a fish, I had to net it. There is nothing worse than getting a fish up to the edge of the boat only to have your netter miss the fish and then to lose it. Even missing the fish once was enough to evoke some profanities and panic. I cannot blame my dad. It still seems like an appropriate reaction. I think my record for missing a net was four times. Thank God that fish was really hooked and eventually hoisted into our boat, no thanks to me.
If the waters were especially rough, the only way to land a fish without falling overboard was to get on your knees in the middle of the boat. If you were standing on your feet you were likely to fall over and get hurt, or worst yet, fall overboard. Sitting down didn’t give you the room you needed to really work the rod and the reel. Kneeling was your best bet.
On this day, I landed a fish off my knees, and instead of netting a fish that my dad brought to the side of the boat, I poked it with the rim of the net, causing it to spit out the lure and run free. It was my fault that he lost that one (it was a good 25 pounder). Now, after five long hours on the ocean, I was ready to head home. My prayer life had been deepening with each passing hour as the wind and waves increased. We began trolling back towards the bar (which was 5 miles south of us), and the fog came out of nowhere. It was thick, wet, and confusing. The taste of saltwater covered my lips and my hands were numb with cold.
If you have a GPS you can navigate with precision even in the fog. The only thing a GPS will not show you are other boats and logs floating in the water. But this trip took place before President Bill Clinton signed the bill unlocking the satellites to give us access to them for the sake of navigating our cars and boats. We were dependent on more primitive tools for navigation.
My dad was old school anyway and he had a method that worked for him. It involved a compass and a depth finder. Using these two instruments, we should be able to find our way to the safety of the bay. If the harbor entrance was south of where we were, all we had to do is head towards shore (due east), staying just outside the breakers, and then head south until we came to the bar. The problem with this method is that waves break in shallow water and if the visibility is poor, we would not see the rocks of the bar until we hit them. If we had 100 feet of visibility, this method would work. At that moment, I could barely see my dad in the back of our small boat.
In times like this, during my formative years, I learned to pray. I also made many vows to God. “Lord, please get me home. I just want out of this situation. Keep us safe. If you do, I will serve you for the rest of my life.” I suspect that these prayers come to God from men and women on the sea with a frequency much greater than such prayers from those confined to the land. I don’t think you have to be very religious to pray such prayers if you’re on the ocean and not sure if you’re going to make it home. The Bible has prayers like this being offered up by men on boats in peril, whether it was the companions of Jonah or those of the Apostle Paul.
Blindly my dad steered the engine, watched the depth finder and the compass while I was perched on the bow, given the enormous task of watching for boats, logs, or the jetty. Our lives were in my frozen hands.
The foghorn blared from the jetty for us and any other mariners who were looking for the harbor. As it grew louder, we knew we were getting close and heading in the right direction. We hadn’t been hit by any breaking waves, but we were entering the most hazardous part of our journey. The surf thundered on the shore nearby.
Straining my eyes through the fog with a flurry of prayers spoken under my breath, I was confronted by crashing waves and towering black rocks 50 feet away. “Jetty ahead!” I yelled to my dad as he sharply turned the boat west towards deeper waters. The currents, backwash, and waves tossed our boat around. The waves grew steeper in the shallow water along the rocks. Up and down through the white-capped chop we went. I held on tightly to the sides of the bow of the boat. Finding our way past the end of the North Jetty my dad turned us 180 degrees, into the entrance of the bay. Navigating through “the bar” is tricky when the tide is low or the waves are large. Both factors were working against us. Occasionally waves break inside the bar and many boats have been capsized as a result. A particularly large wave was approaching us from behind. My dad hit the throttle and before I knew it we were surfing that wave faster than our engine could push us. I looked back and was afraid the wave would break. But instead of getting steeper and steeper, it maintained a nice round shape that kept pushing us along without danger. I smiled as the wind, the fog, and the ocean spray blew in my face. Our small boat was pushed in by four more waves, none of which broke on us. Then the ocean calmed, and I felt the anxiety leave me.
My prayers had been answered! I was alive. I tried to recall the vows I had made while out there on the ocean.
“Good job navigating son,” my dad said, smiling.
“Thanks, Dad. It was all you.” I said knowingly.
We went to the dock, cleaned the fish, and went home for a feast of salmon.
“How was it today?” My mom asked.
“It was all right,” I answered, as a real fisherman would. There are some true stories better left untold, especially to your mom. A dodged bullet. A near miss. A stumble but not a fall. Countless moments of grace where we get out of binds we put ourselves in.
“Thanks, Dad. It was all you.” This is what it is to understand the grace that gets us through every day. It is our humble response to our loving Father.
Ephesians 2:8-9
8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9 not by works, so that no one can boast.
Questions:
- When do you find yourself spontaneously praying for God’s help?
- Describe a time when God got you out of a difficult situation.
- Give thanks to your Father for His protection, intervention, and navigation in your life.
