The One We brought Home
We left the harbor at dawn, the sea flat and glassy under the growing light. There was something ceremonial in the way we cast off—quiet, steady, a nod to the friend to whom we were dedicating the day.
We started small under the blue sky and the warm sun. Baitfish flashing like coins at the ends of our lines. Then came the tuna—fat, fast, slicing through the water and lighting up the boat with motion. But those weren’t the goal. They were simply bait for something bigger.
Out in open water, the strike came without drama. Just a sudden, breathless tension. A quiet acknowledge that there was something on the line. Then, the excitement: at first, the gasps and laughter of men in disbelief, rounds of encouragement. Over the next four hours, this would give way to muffled sounds of exertion, of exhaustion, of each man on the boat rotating through their turns in the fighting chair, giving their all before requiring the help of their fellow fisherman. Eventually: fatigued, determined silence. The scream of the reel became our song.
We were locked in a battle with a marlin in a stretch of ocean that didn’t care who we were. The fight took all of us: cramped hands, locked elbows, grit passed back and forth like a baton. No showboating. Just work—us against the marlin, with the deep blue waves and sea breeze as our backdrop.
Once, we almost had it. We started to catch glimpses of the marlin’s blue slipping under the waves, but it pulled away.
Still, we didn’t stop. All of us on the boat were determined to bring it in. But after the second time it pulled away, I started to wonder if we’d get it back.
Muscles burning, I kept my eyes on the reel, doing what the captain told me. Don’t look at the water. Focus. But luck was on my side—I glanced up to check the rod and caught a magnificent sight.
About a hundred yards out, the Marlin broke the surface in a clean, impossible arc. For a second, everything stopped. Water streamed from its body like silk. It hung there, sky and sea suspended around it.
That was the moment we knew. It wasn’t just big. It was something else—something mythic.
We pulled it in by inches. Time dissolved. There was only the rod, the line, the weight. And then it was over. A final give. Finally, we pulled the fish to the deck with a wet, decisive thud.
532 pounds. At the harbour, they told us it was the biggest they’d seen in years.
We didn’t cheer. We just stood there, stunned and quiet, sweat cooling on our backs, eyes fixed on the gleaming body at our feet. What we’d done didn’t need saying.
That night, we enjoyed the smaller tuna. The marlin, we saved. My body ached with the pleasant exhaustion of a good day’s work. The air smelled of salt, smoke, and ginger. Someone passed me a drink. Someone else told a story. I listened, legs aching, face warm from the grill and the company. All men had taken turns at that unwilling reel. We’d accomplished something real, something massive together. Something impossible to bring in alone.
It’s not the feast I remember most. Nor is it the glory (though the bragging rights don’t hurt).
It’s the way the Marlin leapt from the water, suspended in time, like a living symbol of everything we’d worked for. That brief, unforgettable moment, full of strength and grace, is the one I’ll carry with me. The real luxury wasn’t the fish we caught. It was the memory that jumped into the air with it, leaving its mark on us all.
