F
Field Ethos
Guest
By Vincent Bini
Every summer during high school, my best friend’s parents would rent a house in the Lower Keys for just about the entire summer break. The setup was perfect—at least for us. He and I stayed the entire summer, joined at various times by the rest of our crew, while his folks rolled in on weekends to check for damage, restock our supplies, and provide just enough adult presence to keep us mostly out of jail.
Should we have been left alone at 15 or 16? Absolutely not. But this was the late ’80s, early ’90s, when parental oversight was more of a suggestion than a mandate. Nowadays, that would be labeled neglect. We called it freedom.
One particular summer, the house was on Big Pine Key, perched right on a canal with a dock that let us keep the boat wet all season. Unless we were running down to Key West to fish (which we often did), we had everything we needed at our fingertips.
We lived on a schedule so structured you could set your watch to it—if watches had survived the salt and stupidity. It went like this: wake up before sunrise, chase tarpon. As the tide changed, shift to bonefish or permit. Break for lunch—or at least a cold Gatorade—and then make a short run to the Atlantic side for reef action, or bounce through the backcountry channels hunting for snapper and grouper. Dinner was anything we could fillet, and after dark, we were right back at it—bridge-hopping for nighttime tarpon or heading offshore to a reef that lit up under moonlight.
Eating and sleeping were optional. Fishing? Mandatory.
That’s where I really cut my teeth—learning not just how to catch fish, but where to find them. The Big Three—tarpon, permit, bonefish—weren’t just legends in a magazine. We found them every day. Catching them was another story. But we came close enough, often enough, to believe we were pretty damn good. Truth is, we were. For kids.
Everything was going right … until one morning it wasn’t.
We had a plan—my buddy and I. The night before, we agreed to hit a hot tarpon spot at sunrise. Gear was rigged, and the only thing left to do was roll out of bed, hop on the boat, and go.
He walked out the front door and headed down to the dock beneath the house. I took the back door and stepped onto the porch. I looked down.
No boat.
He looked up. No boat.
Before I could get a word out, he shouted, “Dude! Where’s my boat?!”
It took a second to register, but it hit us at the same time. The boat wasn’t gone—it had sunk. There she was, sitting quietly beneath the surface like a crocodile in ambush. All that remained above water was the starboard rail, barely poking up, still tied off at the dock. Down the canal, a debris trail stretched like a breadcrumb line of shame—our cooler, life jackets, a lonely throw cushion drifting away in slow motion.
We ran down to the dock in disbelief, trying to wrap our heads around what happened. Then it hit us. We’d had an issue with the drain plug a few times that summer. It kept coming loose while we were out, so we’d rigged it to screw in from inside the bilge. We thought we had it sorted.
We were wrong.
Real wrong.
Naturally, we tried to raise her with brute strength and youthful optimism—pulling on dock lines, bailing water with buckets, convincing ourselves water couldn’t be that heavy.
It is. Very.
After a few futile attempts and a lot of slipping, sliding, and swearing, I had what I thought was a brilliant idea.
We’d use the truck.
We backed it under the house, as close to the dock as possible. Then we tied anchor line to the boat’s stern cleat and secured it to the truck’s hitch. The only concern was the seawall—the rope would rub hard against it. If it frayed and snapped, we’d have a bigger problem.
That’s when I spotted a length of PVC pipe under the house. Perfect. I placed it beneath the rope like a makeshift roller to protect it from abrasion. With that, we were good to go.
I positioned myself on the ground with my bare feet on the pipe to keep it from rolling while guiding the rope. My job was to watch the line, keep it steady, and tell my buddy when the boat was high enough to start bailing again.
He eased the truck forward. The stern began to rise. It was working. I felt the tension increase. The boat kept coming up, inch by inch.
And just when I thought we were in the clear—SNAP.
Then—THWACK.
Followed instantly by excruciating pain.
The anchor rope, rigged with a carabiner clipped dead center into the cleat, had held as long as it could. But the combined weight of water and hull was too much. The carabiner failed. The half-inch line turned into a missile, lashing back toward the dock—and me—like a shotgun blast.
It caught my foot—specifically, my toes. Two of them, to be exact.
They exploded.
I mean filleted. Blood sprayed. I launched off the PVC pipe and started hopping around on one leg, cussing and yelling like a guy who had just realized he’d made a massive mistake.
The rope missed everything else—thankfully—but slammed into the truck’s tailgate, leaving a deep dent that remained long after my stitches came out. My buddy jumped out of the truck, white as a ghost, unsure whether to laugh, panic, or run.
Instead, he drove me straight to Fisherman’s Hospital—yes, that’s a real place—where I received more than 20 stitches across two mangled toes.
While I was getting sewn up, he called one of our guide buddies who, bless him, showed up with lift bags and gear. They floated the boat and towed it to a nearby mechanic.
We were dry-docked for a week. A whole damn week of hobbling around on crutches. If I hadn’t been in my happy place—the Keys—I would’ve sworn I was depressed. Sitting on the dock, watching tarpon roll in the distance, was about as torturous as it gets. Still, there were worse places to be sidelined.
I’d love to say that was the last time we sank a boat, or that no more blood was shed that summer.
But that would be a lie.
The post Dude, Where’s My Boat? appeared first on Field Ethos.
Continue reading...
Every summer during high school, my best friend’s parents would rent a house in the Lower Keys for just about the entire summer break. The setup was perfect—at least for us. He and I stayed the entire summer, joined at various times by the rest of our crew, while his folks rolled in on weekends to check for damage, restock our supplies, and provide just enough adult presence to keep us mostly out of jail.
Should we have been left alone at 15 or 16? Absolutely not. But this was the late ’80s, early ’90s, when parental oversight was more of a suggestion than a mandate. Nowadays, that would be labeled neglect. We called it freedom.
One particular summer, the house was on Big Pine Key, perched right on a canal with a dock that let us keep the boat wet all season. Unless we were running down to Key West to fish (which we often did), we had everything we needed at our fingertips.
Rogue Life in the Conch Republic
We lived on a schedule so structured you could set your watch to it—if watches had survived the salt and stupidity. It went like this: wake up before sunrise, chase tarpon. As the tide changed, shift to bonefish or permit. Break for lunch—or at least a cold Gatorade—and then make a short run to the Atlantic side for reef action, or bounce through the backcountry channels hunting for snapper and grouper. Dinner was anything we could fillet, and after dark, we were right back at it—bridge-hopping for nighttime tarpon or heading offshore to a reef that lit up under moonlight.
Eating and sleeping were optional. Fishing? Mandatory.
That’s where I really cut my teeth—learning not just how to catch fish, but where to find them. The Big Three—tarpon, permit, bonefish—weren’t just legends in a magazine. We found them every day. Catching them was another story. But we came close enough, often enough, to believe we were pretty damn good. Truth is, we were. For kids.
Everything was going right … until one morning it wasn’t.
We had a plan—my buddy and I. The night before, we agreed to hit a hot tarpon spot at sunrise. Gear was rigged, and the only thing left to do was roll out of bed, hop on the boat, and go.
He walked out the front door and headed down to the dock beneath the house. I took the back door and stepped onto the porch. I looked down.
No boat.
He looked up. No boat.
Where’s My Boat, Dude …
Before I could get a word out, he shouted, “Dude! Where’s my boat?!”
It took a second to register, but it hit us at the same time. The boat wasn’t gone—it had sunk. There she was, sitting quietly beneath the surface like a crocodile in ambush. All that remained above water was the starboard rail, barely poking up, still tied off at the dock. Down the canal, a debris trail stretched like a breadcrumb line of shame—our cooler, life jackets, a lonely throw cushion drifting away in slow motion.
We ran down to the dock in disbelief, trying to wrap our heads around what happened. Then it hit us. We’d had an issue with the drain plug a few times that summer. It kept coming loose while we were out, so we’d rigged it to screw in from inside the bilge. We thought we had it sorted.
We were wrong.
Real wrong.
Naturally, we tried to raise her with brute strength and youthful optimism—pulling on dock lines, bailing water with buckets, convincing ourselves water couldn’t be that heavy.
It is. Very.
After a few futile attempts and a lot of slipping, sliding, and swearing, I had what I thought was a brilliant idea.
We’d use the truck.
We backed it under the house, as close to the dock as possible. Then we tied anchor line to the boat’s stern cleat and secured it to the truck’s hitch. The only concern was the seawall—the rope would rub hard against it. If it frayed and snapped, we’d have a bigger problem.
That’s when I spotted a length of PVC pipe under the house. Perfect. I placed it beneath the rope like a makeshift roller to protect it from abrasion. With that, we were good to go.
I positioned myself on the ground with my bare feet on the pipe to keep it from rolling while guiding the rope. My job was to watch the line, keep it steady, and tell my buddy when the boat was high enough to start bailing again.
He eased the truck forward. The stern began to rise. It was working. I felt the tension increase. The boat kept coming up, inch by inch.
And just when I thought we were in the clear—SNAP.
Then—THWACK.
Followed instantly by excruciating pain.
Where’s My Toes, Dude?
The anchor rope, rigged with a carabiner clipped dead center into the cleat, had held as long as it could. But the combined weight of water and hull was too much. The carabiner failed. The half-inch line turned into a missile, lashing back toward the dock—and me—like a shotgun blast.
It caught my foot—specifically, my toes. Two of them, to be exact.
They exploded.
I mean filleted. Blood sprayed. I launched off the PVC pipe and started hopping around on one leg, cussing and yelling like a guy who had just realized he’d made a massive mistake.
The rope missed everything else—thankfully—but slammed into the truck’s tailgate, leaving a deep dent that remained long after my stitches came out. My buddy jumped out of the truck, white as a ghost, unsure whether to laugh, panic, or run.
Instead, he drove me straight to Fisherman’s Hospital—yes, that’s a real place—where I received more than 20 stitches across two mangled toes.
While I was getting sewn up, he called one of our guide buddies who, bless him, showed up with lift bags and gear. They floated the boat and towed it to a nearby mechanic.
We were dry-docked for a week. A whole damn week of hobbling around on crutches. If I hadn’t been in my happy place—the Keys—I would’ve sworn I was depressed. Sitting on the dock, watching tarpon roll in the distance, was about as torturous as it gets. Still, there were worse places to be sidelined.
I’d love to say that was the last time we sank a boat, or that no more blood was shed that summer.
But that would be a lie.
The post Dude, Where’s My Boat? appeared first on Field Ethos.
Continue reading...