Their Instructors' Tales
~ Maria Desjardins ~ Leta L.-Malone ~
~ Maurice Michaud ~ Mary Lou O'Hara ~

Gone Fishin'!
 

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Gilligan's Island
(A Collaborative Effort with
Nicole Bergeron & Lucie Girard)
eople have funny ideas sometimes. We can almost say that they go looking for trouble. Actually, I (Annie) was the one who had said: "Hey girls, let's go deep sea fishing on a big boat; it's gonna be fun." I didn't make myself popular that night. Nobody wanted to come with me, but I stuck to my idea by saying: "I went sailing in Venezuela, and also I went around Bonaventure Island. It was so great and Blah! Blah! Blah!" Finally two of the girls, Nicole and Louise, decided to come.

We were very excited and ready to go. We made a lunch and brought warm clothes and our raincoats. We even took Gravol two hours before we left to prevent sea sickness. Everything was fine until we saw the boat. Her name was "Puffin." I asked Maria why people always give feminine names to their boats. She told me that they were naming their boat from an important woman in their life, but we thought the name sounded like "Pas Fine."

But let's go back to the story. So, the "Pas Fine" was a small wooden fishing boat. We had come this far already, so there was no turning back. We went on board; sailed for an hour, and stopped in the middle of nowhere. Actually, I don't have a clue how sailorscan get their bearings at sea. I will have to ask next time, maybe! To continue my story, everything was fine; the weather was perfect, so the fishing was good. Now, I'm going to let Louise continue the story.

Right from the beginning, it turned out to be a case of "miraculous fishing." This is not some kind of "fisherman's story." I'm telling you the truth. The fish were almost jumping in the boat by themselves. The minute we put the lines in the water, we had to reel it up, and that was it! Three fish at a time. It lasted for at least 45 minutes, and then it calmed down a little, but we were still catching some. It was a lot of fun. Now, I'm going to let Nicole continue the story.

We saw a seal. It was really cute, but it scared the fish away, so, afterwards the fishing wasn't as good. Then, we caught a glimpse of a whale. We were hoping that it would come closer to the boat, but it went for a deep dive and we weren't able to locate it again. Unfortunately, during that time, Annie had to lie down for a while, but she didn't throw up—which was good! On our way back, we had to stop at McNab Island to pick up some people. When we got close to the dock, the engine stopped working. Tim, the handsome captain, tried to restart it, but it was dead. We were drifting slowly toward the beach which was not good at all. Tim and Rob, the other crew member, struggled to put down the anchor, but it was not holding. We were getting closer and closer to the beach, and the boat, being made of wood, would have been wrecked if we had touched the bottom which we were able to see. While all of this was happening, Tim was also talking to two other boats. However, as we were coming closer to the beach, Tim attempted once more to restart the motor and this time he was successful. They tied the fishing boat to the wharf, and because Tim didn't trust the engine, another boat came to our rescue.

Let's go back to Louise. I had brought a cooler and ice in case we would catch some fish—which was good! So, of course, I brought some fish back. The cook was nice enough to prepare some, so we had the satisfaction of tasting it and we even had enough to share with our friends. We really enjoyed the day and we're looking forward to repeat this experience.

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Stop Sign
ould you expect to see a stop sign on a highway? Would you expect to have to stop on a highway? Well! We didn't! That's why, because of the driver, we almost ran over some orange pilons. The sight of two guys running after our car and holding a stop sign made us realized that we had to stop, so we did! Lucie did not see the stop but she saw the guys, so she stopped dead and started talking to these guys. Meanwhile we were getting impatient and tried to flee, but one of the flaggers scolded us. So, we stayed put. We were pretty dismayed when Lucie gave a beer to the flaggers. We thought... "That's it ! We're here for at least two hours!" Luckily our escort finally showed up. In this case, the definition of escort is "a small truck driven by a woman and carrying at the back a placard on which was written "FOLLOW ME—SUIVEZ-MOI." By the way, there was some construction work going on.