The Young Man and the Sea

Every year, my friend Luke Saranah and I head 10 to 15 hours north into Western Australia’s desert to camp and surf. Luke’s a salty dog—works on tugboats, rides the heaviest waves, and catches big fish. As a tradition, we have post-surf feasts around the fire with fresh tuna caught by someone from base camp. I’ve always partaken but never contributed. I’m not a fisherman and have never killed a fish. On a recent trip, though, I was determined to give back by catching dinner—to be a man for a day.

Late afternoon, Luke and I set out on his ski to catch tuna. After we’d been trolling for hours, bait balls started boiling everywhere on the sheet glass. Both our lines got hit, reels spinning. Luke cut the ski’s engine while I fought the fish onto the sled. He handed me a ball-peen hammer and told me to hold the fish down and hit it on the head to kill it. I gave the fish a little tap. It was non-fatal, and the fish got pissed and started flapping crazily.

“No, you gotta hit it hard!” Luke said. 

Adrenaline took over. I blacked out and started hammering its head. My finger slipped into the fish’s mouth and got snagged on the hook. Blood was flying everywhere. Luke calmly told me the fish was dead and to stop pounding. Luckily, the hook’s barb didn’t catch under my skin, and I was able to remove it. 

On the next fish, Luke told me I needed to bleed them by slitting their throats and handed me a knife. Blood was spraying everywhere—not just from the fish, but also spurting from my toe. I’d accidentally cut myself in the process. Such a rookie move. Luke was just staring at me, covered in blood, kneeling on his sliced-up sled. I put the fish in the cooler and pulled out some beers. 

While celebrating the catch, we felt a bump. The pool of blood had attracted a tiger shark as long as the ski. Luke hit the ignition to get us out of there, but the ski didn’t start. We popped the seat and saw the engine compartment completely flooded. Water had seeped in from a crack in the hull, and the bilge wasn’t pumping it out while the engine was cut. We were within swimming distance of the shore, but massive closeouts were unloading over live coral heads. I bailed water with a chopped beer can while Luke worked on the motor.

The wind was blowing offshore. Plumes of spray from the waves started raining down on us as we drifted closer to the surf line. Luke chucked the anchor, but it didn’t catch at first. When it eventually did, we were moving so fast in a rip that it flipped the ski. We ended up in the water, complete yard sale, all tangled up in fishing lines. I’d locked the fish in the cooler, thank God. We rolled the ski back over and climbed on.

Luke was pulling up the anchor and throwing it out to sea, over and over, to inch farther away from the waves. We came up with a plan: I’d swim in, run the nearly 2 miles to the truck, grab the jump-start battery, and then swim back out. 

Blood was still gushing from my toe when I dove into the water and sprinted toward shore. I was too worried about that tiger shark to care about the pounding waves and sharp coral. I made it through the surf, ran up the first dune, and started dry heaving. I could see Luke still pulling up and throwing the anchor. He looked like a pinprick on the face of these huge closeouts that he was barely clearing. 

I sprinted to the truck, found the jump-starter, and ran back. When I breached the dunes, I was relieved to see Luke still afloat and working the anchor through the dusky haze. 

The surf was impenetrable. I got pounded on coral and rolled over urchins while finding a gap. The bait balls were still going nuts when I made it out the back. Fish were jumping, and tuna fins were splashing the surface. It was beautiful and scary at eye level—the tiger still on my mind. I made it to the ski. The jump-starter worked, and we gunned it back. It was dark when we walked into camp.

“Where the fuck have you been?” everyone asked. 

I whipped out the tuna like a Viking returning with war spoils. 

“Dinner’s on me, fellas!” 

Everyone started laughing. Eventually, Luke’s brother said, “Those are so small! Mackerel tuna. Shit fish. We can’t even eat those.” 

Luke knew the whole time but didn’t have the heart to tell me.

[Photo by Tom Pearsall]