YES! I caught my first clam, when I pulled the hard shell out of the mucky mud.” I’m one step closer to my goal!” “Look what I got.” My brother said to me and he pulled a scallop out of a patch of seaweed. I put my finger near the scallop. When it closed faster than the speed of sound, I flung back and screamed as it almost bit my finger off. I go to the beach every year, but this year it is different. My dad always challenges me every year to catch him a seafood buffet, but I never end up doing it. Now that he has passed away, I just thought it was time to really do it, that’s what has inspired me. So for the whole two weeks, I caught my own food which was crabs,clams,fish,and scallops that I cooked myself! It tasted like a fancy restaurant, though it was just pulled out of the sea (on the down side my fingernails had mud in them from clamming)! I even had my own little fishing squad; we would go in the sound part of the ocean for about 6 hours at a time! There we would catch our clams, scallops, and sometimes crabs! We even saw a few stingrays ( which of course I had to try and catch ).
When I got back from the beach that day I was a little cranky. I just went into my bed and watched t.v for about an hour. I awoke suddenly from a knock at the door, only to find it was my friend Chase. He asked me if I wanted to go over to his room and eat some homemade peach ice cream that his grandparents made. When we made our way to his room, I saw his grandfather churning the ice cream. I could taste the great center of the peach when I took my first bite of the ice cream. I couldn’t resist having seconds so in the return of having the ice cream, I invited them out to the buffet I was going to make. After eating the ice cream I returned to my room and collapsed in my bed and fell asleep.
Two days later my older brother told me “Tonight is the night to go shark fishing”.
That night my brother, Chase, Marykate, Sophie, and I (Marykate and Sophie are my two other friends that came with us on the trip) trudged our way up to the beach. My brother castes two lines out , one for me and one for him, and we waited. After an hour we all left but my brother. When he returned he told us that he hooked two fish (he didn’t know what type because he didn’t get them in) but they both broke the line! Right then and there he swore that he would catch those fish. The next morning Chase’s grandfather told us about a store that sells a type of line called “spider wire”. So we headed to that store, but didn’t end up buying the line. It turns out that it cost 25 cents per foot, which is a lot if you didn’t know. Instead we bought sixty pound test line, but of course we didn’t even get a nibble. The next night when we headed out again, my brother “Jack” was reeling in his line to go to bed when he looked at the surf line where the waves crash, and saw something flapping at the end of his line. He thought it was one of those ghost crabs attacking his line, but it turns out there was a baby shark on the end of it! So after his hard work, he did end up catching a shark after all.
On the final night of my stay, I knew it was time. I got all the supply’s out of the freezer and then turned to my mom and said “Its just not the same without him.” I ran downstairs and looked at my dad’s old fishing rod. I took a good look at it and said in my head, “I did it this time dad, I did it this time”. I ran back upstairs and told my mom,” OK lets start.” I prepared the dinner that I made for me and my friends. Then when I presented it, I felt like my dad watched me achieve my goal by myself without anyone else. I just had a feeling that catching everything and doing it, would make him just as proud as he would be now. That’s what made me do it this time,I did it for him. After the meal I went inside and said to myself “I wish you were still here”. And fell asleep. That’s why I did it, I didn’t know why I did it when I did, but now I do. I did it for him.