Nick Whaley

The alarm goes off, but I’m already awake. I’m already out of bed. I’m already dressed. Do you ever get so excited about something that you can’t sleep the night before? That’s how I am when I know I’ll be spending the day on the water.

The boat slips out of the marina at dawn. As we race towards the horizon, the sky is filled with soft hues of orange and yellow. As the sun slowly rises into the sky, the orange hues fade away, and I settle in to enjoy the scenery of the open ocean as we make our way to the reef.

The boat stops. I make my way over to one of the buckets strapped down on the deck, pull my shirt up to cover my nose, and pop off the lid. That chum is ripe. The bucket of ground fish has been marinating in the sun for a few days, and it has developed an odor that is sure to bring in the sharks. As I begin tossing the chum into the water, it doesn’t take long before I see a fin. And then two fins. And three and four and pretty soon, there is a full-blown feeding frenzy. I pick up a long pole with a small barb at the very end. Attached to that barb is a satellite tag that will send me its location whenever it is at the surface of the water. I make my way to the side of the boat along with a coworker who has a tuna head attached to a rope. He lowers the head over the side of the boat and into the water to draw the sharks closer. One of them moves in to take the bait and I jab him with the pole right at the base of his dorsal fin. I reload the pole with another tag and then trade with my coworker for the tuna head. Now it’s my turn to tease the sharks while someone else pokes them. We continue on until all the tags have been deployed, and then we head back to shore.

As I walk in the front door of my home, I am promptly greeted by my beautiful wife who asks how my day was.

“It was just another day at the office… so pretty damn great.”