Chapter 20: So Glad That You’re Here Again

Tuesday was fine, as forecast. Ryan and Pauline both arrived bright and early, the former with bait and berley, the latter with newly purchased lifejacket and neoprene boots.

“Wow! You got serious.” She grinned.

“You ain’t seen nuthin yet. I want you to help me buy some fishing gear.” Ryan was keen to get in the act.

“I’ve got a contact. I can get you a good deal on some quality gear.” He indicated my ancient and battered collection and curled his lip in exaggerated disgust. “This mean bastard buys crap gear and then doesn’t even do basic maintenance.”

Pauline wasn’t having any, whether because she felt obliged to defend me or, more likely, because she had no idea about what made gear good or bad.

“The gear he’s got seems to work pretty well.”

“It’s my consummate skill that allows me to be so economical.” Pauline grinned so I followed my advantage. “But since you’re a rich bitch, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t have the best.” She looked uncertain. “And then we’ll borrow it!” She laughed and looked a little relieved.

“I’m a bit sensitive about being a ‘rich bitch’. There was a group of girls at St Mary’s that made my life miserable. ‘Rich bitch’ was one of the things they called me.” Ryan was interested.

“You dress well, and you drive a nice car, and this mean old bastard was impressed with your spending in Auckland. You must be richer than him.” I laughed.

“That’s not hard!”

“When I was at St Mary’s, Dad owned a chain of hat shops. He had nine of them and we had money to burn. Then times changed, and hats went out of fashion. Dad hung on for a while, and then got out with less than half of what the business used to be worth. It was still a lot. He blamed himself for ‘failure’ and never did any more business, although some of his Rotary mates encouraged him.” She paused, and looked sad for a moment. “He died while I was in training, and Mum got sick not long after I qualified and I nursed her for nearly five years. That ran the money down some more, but it’s true – I’m a ‘rich bitch’. I’m not short of spending cash, and I’ll never have to work.” She leered at Ryan. “I’m worth marrying!”

“I thought you loved him.” His tone was still joking as he nodded at me, but Pauline got serious.

“I do. I was just joking around with you. But since we are letting it all hang out I can tell you that I also find you attractive, and I’m open to exploring whether we might get to be friends with benefits.” Ryan perked up and came on strongly.

“Are you sure you want to go fishing? I can think of some other fun ways to spend the day!”

“In ya dreams buddy! I want to learn everything you guys can teach me, but right now, that’s boating and fishing.” I decided to take advantage of that opening, and see how Ryan performed in a teaching role.

“How about you start teaching Pauline to setup and run the boat today, and I’ll just go and put together some kai.”

“I brought some cold chicken and a smoked fish pie. Its in the chillybin in the car.” Pauline dismissed the topic of food and turned to Ryan “What do we do first?”

I left them to it and collected the chillybin, adding some fruit, a Sauvignon Blanc, some crackers, and a nice piece of ripe Brie. I packed a litre of milk and a thermos of coffee. Ryan and I go way back, and I trusted him to make sure all the gear was in and the bait and berley was thawing. I had already given Pauline a safety briefing, but a second one would make sure the important stuff was well covered. By the time I was dressed in ‘fishing clothes’ with hat and lifejacket, they had loaded and hooked the boat up to my SUV, so it was stow the chillybin, and off to the ramp.

I watched Ryan run Pauline through our launching routine, and then held the boat while he parked the trailer and returned to teach Pauline how to run through a final check and then start the motor. All good so far, but was he going to give Pauline her first ‘drive’ in control of throttle and tiller to thread our way through the moored boats? I was somewhat relieved that he didn’t. He had her sit down aft beside him and he ‘talked’ our way out through the anchorage, before handing over control.

Pauline loved it. She ‘got’ very quickly that pushing the tiller one way turned the boat the other, and also that boats (unlike cars), don’t straighten up on their own. Sounds easy – and it is – until a kayaker (or worse a jetski) appears from behind a moored boat, and the person ‘driving’ has to act quickly under pressure. Five knots doesn’t sound very fast - and it isn’t, until something unexpected happens. I have seen a lot of low speed boating disasters and had a few of my own in the last sixty years. But our new skipper seemed both competent and confident for a novice. I watched carefully to see how she would handle the ‘rip’ where the incoming tide was meeting the sea pushed up by the 15kt SW. She throttled back and let the boat find its own way through the small steep waves, and I relaxed.

Once we were round the corner, the sea was coming from astern. Pauline opened the throttle and we lifted up onto the plane and headed for our favourite Kahawai spot at a shade under 15 kts. We (or rather Pauline) had a couple on ice inside fifteen minutes. She proved herself a very fast learner, insisting on doing everything herself, from streaming the lure, to swinging the fish aboard, dispatching and bleeding them, and putting them into the slurry in the bin.

Ryan and I just watched, and Ryan took advantage of a ‘teachable moment’ when she put all her attention on dealing with the second fish, and failed to notice that a back eddy in the flooding tide was pushing us uncomfortably close to the rocks. We were idling in neutral, and in the relatively calm conditions we risked nothing worse than chipping some paint, but anyone in charge of any boat needs to always keep one eye out for hazards.

“You planning to step ashore?”

“Shit!” She abandoned the flapping fish, and reached for the tiller and gear lever.

“Stop!” Pauline froze. “You have to back away.” She put the motor in reverse, and after a moments confusion before she realised that tiller directions were reversed going astern, she ‘got it’, and we slid smoothly backwards away from the rocks. But she had no idea why she had been told very firmly to back away, and once she had dealt with the fish, and had set course due East for Chile she was smart enough to ask.

“Why did you make me back away?”

“If you had tried to go forward you would have pushed the stern onto the rocks.” Pauline looked puzzled. “Small boats steer by pushing the stern one way or the other. You couldn’t get the bow pointing safely away from the rocks without pushing the stern into them.”

“Oh”

“But a more general and important lesson is that when you are close to a hazard, you should always have some of your attention free to monitor it.”

“So no fucking in a beanbag close to shore then?” She favoured Ryan with a wicked leer, but he didn’t bite.

“No – and not in the fairway either.” Ryan was dead serious, right into teacher role, but Little Red Riding Hood was in control and Pauline giggled.

“I fucked Ivan on a golf course once. The poor bastard was terrified. I didn’t get off – but then I never did.” The Hag wrestled briefly for control, but lost. “Until recently!” Another leer. Ryan remained unimpressed.

“You need to know the terms. A fairway is...” Pauline cut across him.

“A part of a body of water containing the navigable channel suitable for the passage of larger vessels - a ‘shipping channel’.” Little Red Riding Hood was pleased with herself. Ryan was surprised.

“Bugger me! How did you know that?”

“No thanks, rather fuckya. Read it last night.” We both looked surprised, and Pauline carried on. “You guys don’t get it. I’m hooked. I’m fucken hooked. Ever since I first came out in this boat, I’ve been keen to learn. The Auckland shit was an interruption but ever since we got back I’ve read everything I could find and tried to look up what I didn’t understand.” She paused for breath. Ryan and I just looked at each other.

I didn’t know what was in Ryan’s head, or how Pauline’s obvious passion for learning about boats affected his teacher role. I didn’t know how that compared with her casual announcement that she wanted to fuck him. I did know that my head was filled with a mix of lewd fantasies incorporating every sexist stereotype about women on boats I had ever heard of. And I’d heard of a few. I got hard.

We were all quiet for a while, before Pauline wanted to know more.

“Where are we going?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “And what’s going on with you two?” I kept my mouth shut, and Ryan ignored the second question.

“We are going offshore a few miles to look for a workup to fish under, or perhaps even to find some tuna.” Pauline nodded and then looked directly at me.

“You got a stiffy when I said I wanted to learn and had been looking stuff up?”

“Yup – and I was – no - I am embarrassed to admit that I find I still have a whole lot of sexist stereotypes about women and boats, and they have never come up for years, and what you said about being obsessed with boating and fishing makes you a fantasy boating companion, and up they came.” I paused for breath, but Pauline wasn’t backing off.

“Up you came you mean.” Wicked grin. “But I want to hear about the stereotypes.” I think I blushed. I certainly felt as though my face was red. Ryan looked as though he was relieved to be off the hook, and studiously scanned the horizon.