We started out meeting at a friends house at 4:30am on Sunday April 18th. Their was a total of eight guys going on this fishing trip we all put in $75 each for the cost of the boat and bait. I had first thought the boat was leaving out of Key Largo but when I heard mile marker 49, I knew it would be a lot further down into the Florida Keys.

It rained all the way down on the drive and we were worried about how the weather would turn out for the day. The weather report had stated we would have 70 percent chance of rain. That was okay with us but we did not want any lighting because that would not be safe. When we got closer down to mile marker 49, we look for a store to buy beer and other snacks. I did a search on Google and found a Publix close by.

At Publix everyone got a but me got a sub, I decided on fried chicken from the deli. The beer we decided on was Heineken and Presidente in the bottles. We re packed our vehicles with the food ice and beer. The Hyundai Tuscon in the picture is mine, I was a driver of one of the cars. The other car was Damian’s Toyota Scion, small but it took four guys easily to and from the Florida Keys. After we left Publix we went looking for the boat yard and was pleasantly surprised it was only a few blocks away.

The name of the rental company is Fish and Fun rentals off mile marker 49 in the Florida Keys. When we got there no one was around to rent us the boat. We had to call them to find out what was going on with the boat rental. They told us on the phone we should have called them first to see if the trip was still on because of the weather. The guys were all upset now we just spent money at Publix, drove all they way here and were told we should have called to cancel because of the bad weather. It took a few minutes for everyone to calm down and the owner said she was sending someone now to get us our boat but not to go into the Atlantic because there was an advisory warning.

Five or ten minutes later someone showed up from the boat rental company and started to open the place. We asked him about bait and he said they don’t sell live bait but we could got down the street and get some before we set off. Two of the guys set off for the bait and the myself and the others loaded up the boat with our supplies.

I was shocked about the boat, I expected a larger boat with a captain and a cabin. The other guys just laugh at me saying that would have cost us in the thousands to do. I am not a fishing or boating guy but I assumed that for the money we paid we would have had a bigger boat. The boat I had pictured we were going on look like this one.

I was wrong this is the boat we got a 24 foot open fisherman with a 175hp motor.

The guys got back with our live bait, shrimp and small fish, what kind of small fish I do not know.

Now the boat owners representative wanted to go over a few instructions with the guy who where the drivers of the boat. I just learned then we had experience boat drivers among the group off us. Boy was I glad to hear that at least two of us had boating experience.

One of the thing we were warned about again was going into the Atlantic because of the advisory issued. The instructor also told us that we could be tracked by GPS with the Garmin equipment we have on board. I took that as please take the warning seriously and we know where you are at all times. I was hoping that none of the guy wanted to play macho and break the rules. A couple of them did speak about it but we did follow the rules.

The weather turned out great for us, we did not get a drop of rain while out on the boat. The day did start out a little gloomy but the sky opened up into a beautiful sun shiny day.

We had no luck fishing off the seven mile bridge so we decided to go out into the Gulf of Mexico and try our hand spear fishing. The sun was completely out and shining brightly now. The guys were all impatient to get into the water and spear fish. The water was calming down but we had no luck find any  fish in the Gulf. We even had guy pulled behind the boat with masks on look for good spots to fish and spear fish.

We decided to call the boat company and see if it was okay to go out into the Atlantic ocean now. They said the advisory had been lifted and it was okay to go out now. So we pulled up the anchor and were off to the Atlantic ocean. I noticed that the water turned blue and the Depth Gage showed much deeper water than the Gulf. The waves were a lot rougher now and the boat was going up and down, not good for week stomachs. Our destination was a coral reef that we saw on the map that was given to us at the beginning.   When we got to the spot we had our first victim with sea sickness, the second victim was me. I threw up everything that I ate that day which was mostly fried chicken from Publix. I was one of the only guys who did not go into the water. I wimped out after getting sick, plus I suck at swimming. The other guy was not a strong swimmer also.

We stayed out looking for fish a  few more hours, two fish were caught, one by me and the other by Damian but they were only 9 1/2 inches and needed to be at least 10 inches to keep. Luckily for those two fish a half an inch was the decision maker on getting eaten or not. We stayed out a few hours in the Atlantic and then headed back to refuel the boat. After refueling we decided to go back by the seven mile bridge and try our hand fishing there before packing up shop.

The bridge did not yield any fish that day and by now we were burnt out. I was dead tired from the sun and throwing up all my stomach contents. I was even burnt from passing out on my back in the open sun on the boat.

The day ended up with us heading to a Waffle House in Key Largo and instead of eating fish I had a burger and chili. What I learned from this trip is that we could have gone to Bud and Marys’ for $60 per person and have a boat with a captain, crew, rods, bait and a cabin for less than we paid with left over money for beer and snacks.