boat trip

fisherman's worst nightmare, but if you talk to enough fishermen, it's a dream ending, too.
That would be dying while fighting a huge fish. Some anglers say that's the way they'd like to go when they go. And since we all will go, why not go doing something we love to do? That's the thinking.



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It happens a lot more than we realize. Boat owners don't publicize the fact that an older angler succumbed on a fishing trip, but every once in awhile it happens. Take a look at the anglers who go on these long-range trips. Most are between 40 and 80, some older. The Independence had an 82-year-old angler aboard its recent trip. Frank Machado, 82, was honored for his World War II service during a Veteran's Day remembrance on the boat during the 10-day trip.
Machado, of Modesto, survived his battles with huge tuna. In fact, anglers marveled at how after landing a 256-pound tuna, he was right back at the bait tank baiting up.

I'm sure Dr. Robert Fechner had every intention of landing the huge yellowfin tuna he was fighting when he suddenly had a stroke while at the rail of the Red Rooster III on Nov. 12.

Fechner, a pediatrician who had delivered nearly 1,000 babies, had just retired in March. He and his wife, Antie, celebrated their 20th wedding anniversary a month before his retirement. At 67, Fechner had a lot of good years ahead of him of going to Padres games (he was a season ticket holder) and working on his beloved koi pond in his orchard.

But he died in San Diego four days after having his stroke battling a 200-or even 300-pound yellowfin.

"He was on a fish the same time I was," said Allen Lembert of San Diego. "I saw him struggling with a water bottle, and that was the start. It was like his right hand and arm weren't working."

Dr. John Keating of Santa Barbara was on the trip. The other anglers and Captain Andy Cates praised Keating for the work he did trying to save Fechner. Keating also accompanied Fechner to La Paz to get the best medical attention available.

"He suffered the stroke and then went into a coma," Keating said. "There really wasn't anything we could do."

Red Rooster III owner Linda Palm-Halpain was deeply saddened.

"He just didn't fish our boat, he fished all the boats here," Palm-Halpain said. "Such a nice, nice man."

Lembert said he fished with Fechner "nine or 10 times."

"One of the nicest guys you'll ever want to meet," Lembert said. "When he first left the rail, I just figured he had heat stroke or something and that he was going to be OK."

Captain John Grabowski has seen two anglers die in recent years during fishing trips.

One of them died in his sleep and wasn't discovered until 9 a.m. when other passengers realized they hadn't seen him all morning. The second died from a massive heart attack while fighting an albacore.

"We were on the first of a five-day trip, and we had a good morning before hitting a midday lull," Grabowski said. "Around 4:30 we found a good school of biting fish. I got on deck and everyone had a fish on. I took one guy's rod from him and we went up the side then back down to the port corner, and I handed him the rod. He let go of it immediately and fell backwards to the deck."

Grabowski said two paramedics on the boat went to work on the man to save him, but to no avail.

"He was dead before he hit the deck," Grabowski said.

The Red Rooster III was able to resume its trip after Fechner was taken to La Paz and then San Diego on the recent trip. But on Grabowski's run, the Coast Guard ordered him to return immediately to San Diego. After some paperwork and answering some questions for the Coast Guard and police, Grabowski was permitted to resume the fishing trip.

"We arrived back on the albacore grounds around 2 that afternoon, but it changed the entire dynamic of the trip," Grabowski said.

In talking to the other anglers on the trip with Fechner, they had the same feeling.

"It really put a damper on things," said Keating.

We can talk all we want about wanting to cash in our chips while fighting a fish. But it's a different deal when we see someone go that way. No one wants to see anyone make his last fishing trip.


Fishing and history
Machado, the World War II veteran on the Independence, served in the Navy and was part of the amphibious force that supported the Marines. Machado's unit would deliver supplies to Marines on the beach. In fact, he supplied the base on Tinian, the island used to launch the planes that carried the two atomic bombs that ended World War II. Historians say the capture of the islands of Saipan, Tinian and Guam were the key actions that led to victory over the Japanese.
"I was there when the Indianapolis brought the atomic bombs in," he said.

Charter master Joe Carter, owner of Farallon Boats, arranged for the celebration to honor all veterans aboard on Veteran's Day, Nov. 11.

"I thought it was something we could do to honor these guys and thank them for their service," Carter said.

"I felt like a celebrity," Machado said. "These guys were terrific."

As Machado was talking, Van Douc was doing his best to move the big 200-and 300-pound tuna that were brought back by the Independence.

Van Douc is a regular at the landings. A native of South Vietnam, he fought with the Americans during the Vietnam War and was shot and lost his right arm.

Van Douc wasn't part of any Veteran's Day celebration. He settled for a couple of yellowfin tuna for helping out on
Twenty-five years ago this month, a group of high school seniors and two adults commenced a rafting trip down the Sipsey River in west Alabama. Before it was over, some members of the party would abandon the effort, seeking warmth and comfort in the arms of their sweethearts. The rest would struggle on without food and adequate shelter. Heck, my sleeping bag caught on fire.

Reflecting on that wild trip a quarter century later, there are few redeeming lessons. But there are lots of amusing stories.

The trip began on a whim, a flash of an idea hatched by our football coach. David Langner is well-known to Auburn and Alabama football fans. It was Langner, an Auburn defensive back, who returned two blocked punts for touchdowns in the 1972 Iron Bowl to lead a come-from-behind victory over the Crimson Tide.

Our coach was a man of energy and passion, so it was no surprise that on the final week of our regular season, with no hope of advancing to the playoffs, Langer came up with a plan.

Langner and one of his assistant coaches would treat the team� seven seniors to a river trip/hunting expedition down the chilly waters of the Sipsey.

The fun would never stop. The wildlife along the river would be abundant. Keep the shotguns ready, I heard the coach promise his boys, the deer will be as thick as flies.

Three flat-bottom boats were borrowed. Provisions were purchased. A tent was packed. Sleeping bags were rolled up.

The football game the day before the river trip was almost an afterthought. We traveled to some tiny school in another part of rural Alabama, ran over a team with even less talent than our own and drove back home to Pickens County to catch a few winks before Saturday� early morning wakeup call.

If my pals and I were reflective, we would have pondered life� turning point between adolescence and adulthood as our convoy of pickups wove through backroads in rural Pickens and Tuscaloosa counties. We would have considered how our lives were structured around sports and the outdoors. We had traveled these roads many times to watch University of Alabama football and basketball games. We had crossed them as little league baseball players scheduled to play rivals from other small towns like Gordo and Elrod. We had gone down them on other early mornings, decked out in camouflage and carrying weapons for the deer hunt.

The fun and games would soon change. Work, and schooling to prepare for work, would take priority.

But that� not how our group rolled. We traded jokes, told wild tales, spread salacious rumors and anticipated what a weekend on the river would bring.

What it brought at first was work. The boats, weighed down with gear and supplies, were heavy to load into the water. The slow current required heavy-duty paddling to make any progress. Fallen logs and other obstacles required us to pick up our little boats and awkwardly tote them until we reached deep water again.

After a morning of paddling, Coach Langner, our leader who was decked out in a sea captain� hat with a picture of Mickey Mouse on the front, brought us to a halt to take stock. Two boats had made slow but steady progress along the twists and turns of the Sipsey. In a foreshadowing of events to come, the crew of the third boat was far behind.

The scene when they finally caught up was unsettling. All three had stripped off their shirts and used their camouflage greasepaint to stencil rude drawings on their bare chests. It seems the crew of Boat Three was on a different cruise, one made more for pleasure and less for hard work. They were in no hurry. Paddling had been replaced by loud laughter and risky, thrill-seeking maneuvers like standing up in the boat and yelling out. If one could have surfed the Sipsey, these three would have tried it.

But the thing about a river trip is that it� not too hard to follow the route. Take it easy or go all out, you�l end up at the same point eventually.

Which is what we did by nightfall that Saturday. We found a nice sandy beach in a wide bend of the river and pitched our tent. We� brought plenty of chips, peanut butter and jelly, bread and canned meat, which was good since the promised game for shooting and eating were nowhere to be found. Had it been an exaggeration, or had the exuberance of our third boat scared off any animal with ears? Nobody cared while munching on Spam sandwiches and potato chips.

We had food and a fire and our most ambitious hunter had even managed to make a kill by getting out of the boat and quietly stalking his prey. An hour or so and a shotgun blast later he returned with his prize ?a skinny little squirrel. We�l be out here a long time, I thought to myself, before I get hungry enough to eat that nasty looking river squirrel.

Others weren� so hesitant. We� all been taught not to waste the beasts we hunted, and so our friend pulled out his knife and prepared to cook his catch. It was hours later when, with a mouthful of squirrel fur, our friend realized that cleaning and gutting one� prey is not a task to be done hastily or in the near-darkness.

But if that was the worst thing that had happened, there was little to complain about. We were all still together. We� managed to stay dry. We had a warm fire. Nonetheless, one of us ?a crewman of the infamous Boat Three, I�l emphasize ?stood up in the middle of the night and wailed, �h, I� cold. Uh, I� cold. Uh, I� cold.?P>Makes perfect sense. The boy was standing up in the middle of a cold November night in nothing but his tighty-whitey underwear. Someone eventually persuaded him that the path to warmth and slumber led to the inside of his sleeping bag.

Over the next day, we would learn that cold was but one of our problems. The gang had expected that it would take only a couple of days to travel from southern Tuscaloosa County all the way to near where the Sipsey flows into the Tennessee-Tombigbee River. That trip, we learned later, would have taken more than a week. Our three days?worth of provisions would not have been enough.

That sad fact was made worse when Boat Three and its crew bailed out on the expedition after 24 hours.

As a precaution, we� arranged for friends to meet us where the Sipsey crosses under U.S. 82 south of Tuscaloosa. The first boats said hello, assured the friends that all was well and moved on down the river.

The crew of Boat Three had other plans. Gone was the rowdiness from the previous day. In its place was a gumbo of emotions ?fatigue, missing their sweethearts, bitterness that the Crimson Tide had lost to LSU the day before. It all added up to three boaters who, when they reached the U.S. 82 bridge, loaded up their craft and went home.

Before leaving, they ran ahead to the first two boats to say they were pulling out of the grand adventure. We greeted this news with scorn and derision, challenging the manhood of the crew of Boat Three.

It would be several hours before we realized they had their revenge. Their boat had been carrying the tent and the food.

As this realization dawned on us, it rankled our fearless leader. Suddenly it seemed as if we were in Francis Ford Coppola� Vietnam War film Apocalypse Now, and Langner was our Col. Kurtz, the mad visionary who led his troops upriver. You know, if Col. Kurtz had been wearing a hat with a picture of Mickey Mouse on it.

When his boat became trapped by some fallen logs, and our boat refused to help, the football coach became angry. He took out his shotgun and fired a warning shot.

We were sure he meant to miss.

If he meant to persuade us to come back and help, his plan failed miserably. We paddled faster in case he decided to reload.

An hour or so later, our boat became stuck and his boat passed us by without helping. We exchanged taunts, but no more gunfire.

The river twisted and turned for the rest of the day. The monotony of quietness and deep woods put us in a trance. Perhaps the next bend would reveal a landmark, a bridge, anything that would signal progress. As it grew darker, we remained disappointed.

Even after the sun set and darkness came upon us, we continued paddling. Our silent journey was interrupted by paddles softly moving water and the occasional beaver that would evade us by splashing into the river.

When it appeared that the prospects for getting home that evening were slim, we found a suitable spot on the river bank, pulled our boats out of the water and built a fire. Without a tent to set up or food to prepare, making camp was a breeze. Someone built an enormous campfire and we circled our sleeping bags around it.

Within minutes of settling down, this tired river adventurer was asleep.

In what my friends said was mere minutes but what seemed to me like hours, I was awakened. My sleeping bag was too close to the roaring fire and was smoking. I sleepily arose, tamped down the hot bit with a wet sock and flopped back down. The last thing I heard before falling back asleep was, �hat� not enough. It� gonna catch fire again.?P>Once more, in time my pals measured in minutes and I in hours, I woke up. Flames were rising from where my feet were resting inside the sleeping bag. Slowly it dawned on me ?my feet ... they are a little too warm ?I smell something burning ?ahh, my sleeping bag� on fire!!!

Several large cups of water did the trick, extinguishing the fiery sleeping bag, removing any warmth from my toes and, in the process, entertaining my comrades.

When we awoke, it was Monday morning. The sky was beautiful. It was very quiet out there, a day� paddle from any major road. My sleeping bag was frozen.

We were seeing a part of our home that few had ever witnessed. Other than noisy beavers and fur-covered, half-eaten squirrels, we had seen little game, but we were content. We saw another animal later that morning. It was the carcass of a hog, bobbing in the river from which we had been drinking minutes before.

OK, I thought, that� about enough; let� go home.

After several hours of paddling we heard an inspiring sound, the rumble of a tractor� engine. As we approached, one of our party was elected to go find that tractor and its driver. After reaching a farmhouse, our pal called a rescue party. Come to rural Tuscaloosa County and bring a truck big enough to carry two boats and six tired paddlers, he said. Another hour or so later, we were toting heavy boats across an empty cotton field.

On the way home, riding in the back of a pickup with the brisk breeze in our face, we playfully taunted our rescuers, the infamous crew of Boat Three.

Back in town, Mamas applied extra tight hugs to boys who carried scruffy beards and the odor of three days in the woods. Throughout our school the stories made the rounds about the wild river trip. Among the crew and our circle, tales of the river trip became legend.

Reflecting on this trip a few weekends back while camping with my family, I searched for a larger lesson. I� not sure there is one. I never drive across the Sipsey River that my mind doesn� hearken back to the river trip of November 1982. I think about that time, a quarter-century ago. How boys grow up to be men. How some friends drift apart. How priorities change. How memories of some experiences linger.

Dear reader, I�e searched my heart and can find no bigger lesson. At best, a classic book on the subject comes close.

�sually, fall is the good time to go to the Brazos,?is how the Texas author John Graves began his 1959 book Goodbye to a River: A Narrative.

Graves set out to explore the river that winds through the Lone Star State. In the first chapter, he wrote of how sportsmen eschew the unpredictable Brazos for the comfortable impounded lakes. There are others, Graves notes, �ard-bitten yeomanry who live along it, and to their kinsmen who gravitate back to it on weekends away from the aircraft factories and automobile assembly plants of Dallas and Fort Worth, and to those of us for whom, in one way or another, it has meaning which makes it worth the trouble.?P>
Boat Trip
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Boat Trip

Directed by Mort Nathan
Written by Mort Nathan
William Bigelow
Starring Cuba Gooding Jr.
Horatio Sanz
Roselyn Sanchez
Vivica A. Fox
Distributed by Artisan Entertainment
Release date(s) March 21, 2003
Running time 94 min.
Language English
IMDb profile
Boat Trip is a 2003 LGBT comedy film directed by Mort Nathan.

Contents
1 Plot
2 Cast
3 Reception
4 External links



[edit] Plot
Tagline: Singles cruise. Double trouble.
Once you're on, you'll want to get off
Jerry and Nick are two best buddies whose love lives have hit rock bottom. For Jerry, he vomited all over his uptight, pretentious girlfriend Felicia on a hot air balloon trip prior to proposing to her.

After running into a friend who has married a beautiful girl way above him, the pair tries to escape their troubles and do the same by booking a trip on board a cruise ship. On the way to the travel agency, they have an encounter in the parking lot with a straight-acting gay man. Nick and Jerry walk into the agency, realizing that the man works at the agency, and resume the argument from outside. The manager (Will Ferrell) apologizes for the exchange and books their cruise personally. However, Nick and Jerry are unaware that the travel agency manager has just played a horrid trick on them in retaliation for Nick offending what appears to be his lover after they leave.

Though the cruise ship they're to board has a large banner on the gangplank proudly proclaiming its service to the gay community, Nick and Jerry somehow miss it. After the ship leaves the dock, it becomes apparent that the ship is full of homosexual men. In an attempt to leave the ship, Nick fires a flare gun into the air, hoping to flag down a passing helicopter. The flare ends up hitting the chopper, causing it to crash into the sea. The next day, the passengers of the helicopter, a Swedish bikini model team and their misogynistic coach, are rescued from their lifeboat by the cruise ship.

Jerry tries to make the best of the situation by pursuing the lovely straight dance instructor until trouble boards ship in the shape of his spoiled ex-girlfriend Felicia who wants him back.

Though Nick is making progress with one of the bikini teammates, he also learns more about himself on the trip. He finds that he enjoys being in the company of the gay men who are becoming his friends, after learning that they're not much different from straight men. After waking up with one of them in the same bed, Nick, believing he may have had sex with him, thinks maybe he could be a latent homosexual. The theory is dismissed when the man tells him nothing happened and he continues in his pursuits of the Swedish blond.

Then, Jerry's former girlfriend finds his cruise ship and intends to reunite. She sees him performing in drag. He tries to convince her he's straight, but, at the same time, betrays Gabriella. Felicia and Jerry then go to get married and Nick kisses Jerry at the "forever hold your peace" moment and they run off to find Gabriella with Hector. Lloyd and Jerry then parachute down to the ship that Gabriella is on and they reunite. Then Nick goes to Sweden to find Inga,who is on an extended trip. However, Inga has a little sister who also aspires to be a bikini model. The movie ends when Inga's mom informs Nick that the little sister's coach will be over for dinner, who turns out to be the tanning coach, and she and Nick have an awkward reunion.


[edit] Cast