today eric and i took our boat out for one last fishing trip. we hadn’t even fired up the boat since last december, but luckily everything ran fine (well for the most part). the fishing was pretty pathetic and we were really just going through the motions to say that we did it. we probably had lines in the water for less than 20 minutes total before we decided to call it quits and head back in. for all the effort we’ve put into deep sea fishing over the last few years, we really don’t have too much to show for the time and money we put into the sport/hobby, other than a few huge fish and of course a lifetime of stories and memories.

the biggest problem is that we never really got strong at dealing with the ocean’s rockin’ and we usually had to quit because one of us was seasick. we tried dramamine, bonine, ginger candy, acupressure wrist bands and lately even prescription scopolamine, but all either made us too drowsy, or didn’t work well enough. so with me moving out of town, the boat just having been paid off, and us having had a very short fishing trip, we spent the rest of the day cleaning, detailing and getting the boat ready to be sold. it’ll be sad to see her go, but she served us well.

there’s a bunch of lakes in texas near where i’ll be, so maybe i’ll buy a small fishing boat if i find that i have time, money and the space to keep one. i’ve never done much fresh water fishing, but after all of the expensive and difficult ocean fishing i’ve been through in the last few years, it might be a nice change.

if any of you guys are interested in a 2001 glastron 175 sx fish/ski runabout, let me know, i’ll give you a good deal :)

we all have so many pics of wakeboarding from the last few years, that most of us don’t bring a camera anymore. luckily shali brought one to the labor day bbq and got a few good shots. actually i think this is the first time anyone’s taken pictures of the boat while not on the boat. here are a few that i’m going to have printed and framed.

pulling up anchor and getting ready to head out. i know most of you aren’t the csi:miami freak that i am, but for those that are, this (including the image in the header graphic) is the set of waterways that almost every scene that has a jetski or a boat is filmed in.

me towing mike

shal, sanam and taka sitting in front of the most complicated-to-assemble tent ever

thanks shali!

i can’t believe that summer is over, or at least symbolically with the passing of labor day. compared to summers passed, this one just flew by. i guess it’s because i’m getting older, i’m married, maybe have more responsibilities? whatever the case it went by too quickly. i only took the boat out twice for wakeboarding, once to lake perris and then this weekend to marine stadium. eric and i have only been out fishing a handful of times, and i still haven’t got on my bike, even though i’m planning to ride the final rosarito to ensenada event at the end of the month.

this weekend for the second labor day in a row, we set up on the thin strip of beach that runs along the south side of marine stadium, where we put up a canopy, and could beach the boat. usually, wakeboarding can only accommodate up to 8 people because of the size of the boat, but this way lots of people can come and take turns with the wakeboarding while others can chill on the shore. it was a lot of fun, even though i ended up getting pretty sunburned (taka’s stupid japanese sunscreen). it’s unusual that i get to see that many of my friends at once these days, since everyone keeps moving further and further away, so it was a good time boating, bbq’ing, (at one point a patrol car drove by and asked me about my grill ’cause he said the residents were making complaints? anyway, he just told me that if i wasn’t using it to cover it up with a towel, ’cause bbq’ing is illegal on the beach.. cool guy) playing football and just otherwise enjoying perfect socal weather.

every time i’m ready to sell the boat, i fall back in love with it, and as soon as i do, something else breaks… but how can you not fix something you’re in love with. the endless cycle continues. last weekend while taking care of final preparations to tow the boat to lake perris for a weekend of wakeboarding fun, out of no where (seriously, it was like the boat was just fucking with me) one of the hydraulic outdrive lift lines started spewing blood-red hydraulic fluid at me! at first my heart sank because i’d been looking forward to this trip, and if the boat failed before it left my driveway, i was gonna let down the rest of the crew too. the line wasn’t actually broken, and the leak was coming from inside a coupler that’s supposed to get secured by a flange (just like a brake line), but the nut was as tight as it could be and i didn’t want to back it out for fear of losing all the hydraulic fluid and guaranteeing a failed trip. i ended up using plumbers tape and a metal clamp to hold it, and surprisingly it made it through the whole weekend (6 hours+ on the water although the hydraulic reservoir tank was only half full by the end), but this weekend i need to break it down and figure out what the real problem is.

just a few weeks ago, eric and i were ready to sell it, but then we had a fun fishing trip (even if we didn’t catch any fish), and then last weekend reminded me how much i love wakeboarding. the biggest problem is the damn saltwater. it corrodes and rusts anything it touches and it’s made it difficult to keep the boat properly maintained. the engine still runs surprisingly strong, but at current, the boat needs a new hydraulic line, trim sensor, fuel sensor, and it really needs a new prop which adds up to more than $500. we’ll keep it through the summer for sure, and if we get a few more good wakeboarding and fishing trips out of it without any new, expensive problems, maybe keep it for another season.

i buzzed off my hair a few weeks ago, and last week i buzzed it even shorter a day before eric and i spent 5 hours out on the boat during one of the sunniest days of the year. i put sunscreen on my face, ears, neck and arms, but i forgot to put some on me noggin. i got pretty badly sunburned on my very fair scalp, but mostly forgot about it because it didn’t hurt too bad, until yesterday when it started to peel, but of course it just looks like regular ole’ dandruff to everyone else. i’ll be wearing light-colored shirts for the next couple of days :/

this weekend, eric and i took out our boat for some fishing. we hadn’t been out in months and were slightly surprised that for the most part, it ran fine. the last time we had been out we had both become so seasick that we had lost interest in fishing and the boat for quite a while. this time though, we both took seasickness pills and were fine out on the water for more than 5 hours.

unfortunately, eric and i are in quite the fishless slump. i’m not sure what happened, because we used to catch fish all the time. i think what really ruined us was that huge halibut we caught 2 summers ago, and now most of our gear and setup is aimed at fish that big. i think a return to basics might do us some good and bring the joy back into fishing - and catching. in reading fish reports it also just seems like there aren’t too many fish out there right now for whatever reason, but in a couple of weekends we’ll give it another try.

the funniest thing that happened that day though was when a large pelican and an ocean duck were sitting next to our boat waiting for some of our bait fish. the duck got a hold of one and the pelican started chasing it which made us giggle. so being an asshole, i put a live sardine on the pelican’s back and it didn’t notice it, but the duck did and started attacking the pelican. when the pelican saw that the duck stole a sardine from its back and was trying to swallow it, the pelican put its whole mouth over the duck’s head and neck trying to fight for it. eventually the duck got its head out of the pelicans mouth, but without the sardine. we taunted them with a few more fish before moving on to another spot. it was hilarious, but maybe you had to be there.

and here’s a random sight: a seagull standing on a floating, dead sealion

so after another terrible fishing trip, eric and i are making plans to sell the boat. after not being able to get out last weekend because of trailer problems, this saturday we woke up at 5:30a to make up for all the bad fishing this year. we had some new fancy gps gear, filled up the 20 gallon gas tank, bought live squid… not counting the gps, this was a $100 fishing trip.

we have a few coordinates that we head straight to. we follow the gps and we’re watching the fish finder. we find our location, see fish on the meter and start fishing. within 15 minutes we’re both seasick, and about 15 minutes later eric’s puking. the sound of him puking makes me almost puke and we head back into calmer waters where we fruitlessly fish for another hour or so before we just give up. we got a few hits, but seriously, at $100 a trip and at about 2 trips a month, we’re getting some shitty ROI. we’d be much better off just chartering a couple of mexico trips a year and chase the huge fish, with a skipper that knows how to find them.

we’re definitely gonna keep it through the summer, so there’ll be wakeboarding. costin’s planning on selling his truck around the same time, so this summer’ll probably it for a while. i’m sure i or me and eric will buy another boat in a couple of years, but we’re both pretty fed up with the fishing for now and we’re gonna have other stuff going on here pretty soon. our glastron is also getting kinda old and we’d like to sell it while we can still get decent money for it.

ross invited taka and i to go sailing with him and some of his other friends on sunday. this was my first experience sailing, let alone on such a large boat. i’ve seen plenty of sailboats out in the long beach harbor before, but never had so much respect for how much work is involved in getting the boat out of the marina and controlling it once you do.

ross has a sailing license, and he also brought along elaina (i swear, if you can’t remember a russian’s name? 50% change if it’s a guy he goes by dima, and if she’s a girl, she goes by elaina). both of them were constantly running around, winching lines and yelling commands in russian. it was exciting and out on the water and was eerily peaceful, since you were moving along at a good clip, yet there was almost no sound except for waves, and the russian polka music dave kept trying to play.

amazingly no one got seasick, and it was a great chance to learn the ropes (so to speak, kekeke) of sailing. i think it’d be fun to try to learn how to sail on a smaller boat, but it was honestly more work than i think i’d be willing to deal with on a regular basis.

a bunch of pics:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/kentomatic/sets/72157601940472986/

this weekend taka and i went up to my uncle’s river house. it was 117f when we were out on the river mid-day, and at 11pm? 101f! his house is of course air conditioned, and the colorado river is in the mid-60’s, so we’d all jump in every few minutes, and that made the heat not quite as bad as it sounds. my uncle was saying that he plans on selling the house in a couple of years, and was hoping me and my other 5 cousins would go in and buy it from him together. i won’t hold my breath, but if that ended up working out, we’d finally have some labor day and memorial plans to always fall back on. after the river, we headed up to laughlin to do a bit of gambling. my cousin’s friend won $900 on a $1.50 slot machine bet, so she bought the drinks all night. i broke even after being down $100+, and taka actually walked out $150 up, playing blackjack for the first time. if nothing else, i definitely have the vegas itch now. guys?

btw, we’re gonna go down to marine stadium tomorrow, grill some dogs on the beach and do some wakeboarding, so feel free to come on down. we should be there by 11a at the latest.

with less than a month before summer ends, we made our first fresh-water trip of the year last weekend. on saturday the air temp was in the low 90’s, and the water was in the high 70’s/low 80’s. wakeboarding in fresh water is so much more pleasant since a wipeout doesn’t equal a mouth full of salt water, and as dave pointed out, seemingly less painful when you do fall? maybe the density of salt water vs. fresh water, or it might’ve just been in our heads but we were pushing ourselves and unlike most marine stadium trips, i have no neck or back aches.

taka’s figured out how to cross over the wake and isn’t just stuck riding on the right side of the boat anymore, and lauren is just on the cusp of getting the hang of it, so we got to spend our time just boarding and not teaching. we boarded for 4 or 5 hours on saturday, and then sunday morning we were out for about an hour or so until it started sprinkling so we packed it up and headed home.

the thing i hate about perris though, is that the majority of the people there either just bought a boat, or rented jetskiis and are learning how to use them for the first time, without using any common sense. at one point when i was pulling costin, a jetskiier was only about 10 boat-lengths behind him or so when we were crusing at 20+ mph. the dick was just following for almost no reason. when costin fell, the guy stopped right where he was and i guess was asking him if he was ok? anyway, i circled back and started yelling at him for following too close (this was an older black dude with his son on the back) and putting my skiier in harms way, bla bla bla, and he got all black and was like “don’t you disrespect me with that tone, yada yada” and was wanting me to apologize to him. i didn’t back down, ’cause he was in the wrong, and i was yelling ’cause i was angry+he was far away so i kinda had to. he even admitted that he didn’t know the rules. so we cruise back to the dock about half an hour later, and there’s like 10 black dudes standing on the dock, all standing next to the waterskii that had been ridden by the guy i yelled at! we circled back to think it over and decided that if they threatened to beat me over it, that i’d just go ahead and apologize. turned out that they barely even looked over at us when we docked, so another disaster was averted and it made for lots of funny, racist jokes at the camp fire.

after that story, don’t we look whiter than ever?! esp. with our wigga gang signs:

scenery at perris is much more interesting than the parking lots and houses that line marine stadium: