Fishing Trips

On one of our trips, Greg and I were going out 150-200 miles out off the California coast to fish for albacore. I had just bought a $2,500 life raft that would automatically fill and break loose of the boat if the boat should sink. We also installed a $2500 EPIRB that would pop up and send a rescue signal if the boat sank. Greg and I were about 150 miles out on our way to the fishing grounds late a night and alone when all of the sudden the fire alarm went off in the engine room. Greg and I looked at each other and opened the door to the engine room and it was full of smoke. We cut the engine off and we kept checking the engine room and we couldn't see a fire, just smoke. Finally the smoke cleared and we couldn't see any signs of a fire or what caused the smoke. We started the engine up again and it ran fine and did to this day. We got to fishing area and started to fish the next morning. We saw a wonderful sight. It looked like several hundred of dolphins were following us. we caught some albacore and then our new $5000 refrigeration system froze. So then we had to go back in without a full load. Normally we could hold about 20 tons of albacore. I tried to contact the refrigeration guy who did the work and he had gone into the highway patrol and we couldn't contact him. I had to take the boat to another refrigeration guy who did the job right for another $5000. After one year I sent the new life raft to be serviced for its yearly check. They said it had a faulty valvle and it never would have filled up the raft if we had sank. We also got a recall notice for the EPERB that it was faulty and wouldn't have worked either. If that boat had burned we wouldn't have survived over 4 hours in our survival suits that night. No one would have found us in the dark.

Greg and I used to go fishing up north and anchor down at New Years Island just north of Santa Cruz and further north at Point Reyes by the light house. It was neat at night to see the flourescnse of the fish swimming by. It was a very nice anchoridge. When we were out fishing it was very exciting when we would catch the big salmon and the big albacore. Sometimes we would catch sharks, mainly blue sharks. Greg wanted to try long lining for black cod, so I bought a $15000 system from Mike Tyson and had it installed on the boat. Greg would put about 2,000 baited hooks on the line. We had an automatic barter. we'd lay this line in deep water for about 2 or 3 hours. When we pulled it up he would have about 2,000 pounds of black cod.

Some of the people Greghad crew for him on the boat were Allen Welch, Danny Lyra and Schulty's son.

Over the years, Greg and Bonnie had little Jimmy and Alicia. Jimmy who was 2 or 3 would spend hours on the boat putting down lines all around the boat when we were working on it. He would never cry or get bored. Greg and Bonnie got divorced during this period and Greg had custody over the two kids. In about 1989 or 1990 about Christmas time he pulled the boat in and decided he didn't want to fish anymore. He decided to go back to school and became a mechanical engineer. I sold the boat to Bob Lee for $125,000. He put $25.000 down and I took a note for $100,000. Bob Lee fished it for a while and then sold it to Lou who had Lou's Seafood Restaurant on the Wharf in San Francisco. She paid the note off to me over time. Bob Lee decided he wanted the boat and he bought it back from Lou. After Greg finished his degree at Cabrillo College and San Jose State he got a job at Lockheed and now Lockheed hires him out to NASA.