The phone rang this morning shortly after dawn, Capt. Vanderhoop…”Hello?”, I mumble half asleep, “Hey there! Wanna go Cod fishing?”, long silence… I roll over and hang the phone up. Fifteen seconds later it rings again… “HELLO” I say obviously irritated, “Ha. Ha. Ha.”, he laughs in his typical way, “What, did I wake you?” more laughter (on his end). “Cod fishing!!!!!##**?” I say, “are you serious?”. Short silence, “No I’m not serious” he says, “what are you fu***ing crazy it’s six degrees out!” I was just wondering if you were up…Ha…I guess not. “I roll over and leave the phone off the hook.
Of course I can’t get back to sleep. At six I’m out of bed after a tall pot of coffee I head over to my rehearsal space where I am writing the next record because it’s winter time and we don’t have to get up at dawn in the winter because there is no bait to get in the winter time and no fish to catch in the winter time!!!! Christ… On my way over to work at Stonewall beach I decide to swing through Menemsha and check the docks. When I round the corner and face the channel I can’t believe my eyes. It looks as if the bite is on fire, smoke so thick you can hardly see the water, so gray you’d swear it was burning. It was sea smoke the likes of which I have never seen.
The old timers they call it “reeking”. I tried to reach Louis Larsen for more info on it always hoping as an added bonus to get a great seasonal fishing story out of him but he must be off on one of his annual winter cruises. It’s that time of year too. So I called Capt. McDowell up who was suffering horribly from a trip to the Patriot vs. Tennessee football game last night to see if he knew more about the term. “How was the game?” I ask cheerfully, “It was cold…” He says “and furthermore I got stupid drunk and stayed up til 3am, Now I have to pack for Budapest.” The annual ice boating trip I’m presuming. “Yeah, but at least I got a little prepped for it… freezing cold temps and lots of booze, that’s what Estonia is all about.”
He proceeded to tell me that they call it reeking the same as they do in the southern swamps. Swamps were always said to reek when they gave off smoke and the term translated up north to fishermen around these parts. Well the ocean will be reeking for the next few days I know, as they aren’t giving out for warmer weather. What a beautiful thing to watch as the smoke transforms itself throughout the day. It’s everywhere around the Island on almost every piece of water that isn’t iced over. I don’t know how all of the birds will survive it. No one seems to remember it being this cold. I’m glad I’ll be in the studio for the next few weeks and not out there catching Codfish.
-Jen