It began with Pinot Noir, a clipboard, and the misplaced confidence of a land-loving chef.

Let me say this from the start: I am a chef. Not a fisherman. My idea of “fresh catch” is a fillet of cod draped in beurre blanc, laid gently on a porcelain plate, served beneath soft lighting with a whisper of lemon and the faint murmur of The Beatles in the background. That’s how fish and I understand each other. Quietly. Civilised. On land.

But like all misadventures, this one began with good wine and bad decisions.

It was a silent auction—those glitzy affairs where fairy lights dangle like promises and someone in velvet loafers is trying to pass off a weekend in a yurt as “transformative.” The Pinot Noir had begun to loosen both my inhibitions and my penmanship when I found myself standing before a clipboard that read:

Half-Day Fishing Charter from Oak Bluffs. All Equipment Provided. A $600 Value! Or perhaps it said $100. By that point, the numbers had blurred into mere decoration. I scribbled my name on the bid sheet with the vague, charitable confidence of a man who believed someone else—someone with a boat tattoo and a stronger stomach—would surely outbid him.

No one did.

The following morning, I awoke to an email bearing the cold, bureaucratic finality of fate itself:

Congratulations! You’ve won a half-day fishing charter with five other avid fishermen out of Oak Bluffs!

“Avid.” That word has since taken on the same emotional weight as “unavoidable dental surgery.”

Picture the scene: The morning of the expedition greeted me with a rain so aggressive it felt vengeful. This was no drizzle. This was horizontal precipitation—rain with muscle. Rain that gets in your ears, down your spine, and somehow under your fingernails. It didn’t fall so much as hunt.

I walked past Nancy's, Sand Bar and Coop de Ville, the smell of stale alcohol hanging in the air. A couple of early risers with bedhead gave me a groggy hello, as if sensing I was already doomed.

I arrived at the dock looking like a damp croissant in a squeaky puffer jacket, clutching a thermos of ginger tea like it was a sacrament. The air smelled of old diesel, salt, and frayed rope—notes of hardship, with a lingering bouquet of low tide and regret. Every gust of wind slapped my ears like a disappointed grandmother.

And then I met the Avids.

One man stood in flip-flops. In the rain. On the slick deck of a vessel barely larger than a food truck. His toenails glistened like sea glass. He looked like a man who’d once lost a custody battle with a seagull.

Another wore a neon orange shirt that read “Sexy and I Know It,” which he pointed to proudly, as if it were a doctoral thesis.

Then came Steve and Darryl—twin disasters of digestion.

You could smell them before you knew their names.

They had, by all accounts, destroyed a barbecue buffet the night before. Ribs, brisket, beans, jalapeño mac—the kind of culinary lineup that doesn’t just sit in the gut, it orchestrates rebellion.

Steve: “We went hard.” (Pats his stomach proudly)Me (internally): “So did Vesuvius.”

I quietly renamed them Thunder and Lightning, based on the rhythmic punctuation of their gastrointestinal torment. Every shift of the boat brought with it a new atmospheric event. Warm, smoky, and deeply unholy. It was like being trapped in a foghorn filled with pulled pork.

The boat itself—Lady Pickels—handled like a shopping trolley on gravel. The moment we left the harbour, she bucked and lurched with the energy of something that didn’t want to be at sea. I sympathised deeply.

Fifteen minutes in, my stomach rose in open rebellion. I clutched the slick railings with white-knuckled devotion, knees bent like a cartoon sailor in a storm, praying to Neptune, Poseidon, and whoever else might be listening. The air was thick with diesel fumes and despair. My ginger tea tasted of broken promises and old socks.

Then came the captain.

A weathered man who looked as though he’d been carved from driftwood and shouted at by storms. He beamed at me like the sea was his mistress and I was the comic relief.

“Let me show you how to bait a hook with squid guts!”

He brandished something that resembled a mucus-drenched alien tentacle. It flopped. It dripped. It quivered. The smell was a punchline to a joke Poseidon might tell at a funeral.

I tried to eat a saltine to settle my stomach. A wave hit. I nearly swallowed my thumb.

Meanwhile, the other lads were merrily fishing. One of them caught a striped bass and named it Carl.

They sang sea shanties to Carl. They stroked him like a beloved family pet.

I, meanwhile, was whispering to a passing gull: “Tell my wife… I tried…”

And then… Gary. There’s always a Gary.

Gary had done everything. Plumber. Carpenter. Yoga teacher. “Worked on a boat off Fiji.”

“You ever gut a tuna blindfolded?” he asked, eyes gleaming with the madness of a man who once tried to build a hammock out of squid ink linguine.

He was slicing a sandwich open with a fillet knife that still smelled faintly of anchovies and peanut butter. Possibly both.

I spent the remaining hours alternating between retching, hallucinating, and using my already-drenched trousers as a towel. My lips tasted like anchovy brine. My ears squelched. My soul, I believe, had floated several feet above me, asking for a refund.

When we finally returned to shore, I staggered off Lady Pickels like a man who’d just returned from war.

My jacket had absorbed more seawater than a sponge in a monsoon. My pride was somewhere in a bait bucket. My dignity? Possibly used as chum.

I was fishless. Fatigued. And faintly fragrant.

But we had done it. We raised money. They caught some fish. We suffered.

Which is to say—it was honest.

There was, however, one final obstacle:

I had promised Lady Ashton fish for dinner.

A small promise, made in passing before the auction. The kind of innocent vow that now echoed in my mind like a taunt from the gods.

I looked down at my empty hands. No bass. No mackerel. No Carl. Just a thermos of cold ginger tea… and the lingering scent of squid and failure.

Now, this is the moment where most people break. Fold. Order pizza.

But chefs—we improvise. We’ve served dinner through power cuts, sewage leaks, and even a rogue raccoon once. So I did what any self-respecting culinary hustler would do.

I went to Net Result.

Inside, it was warm. The peaceful one was vomiting or reciting sea shanties to dead fish. Just fresh, glistening fillets under fluorescent lights.

I picked a cod so beautiful I could’ve proposed to it.

Back home, I lit a candle. Poured a glass of white. And cooked like a man trying to earn back his soul.

As the saffron broth simmered, the kitchen filled with the soft perfume of fennel and tomato. And under it all, barely noticeable but oddly grounding, was a faint echo of the sea still clinging to me—diesel, brine, and defiance.

A golden-crisp cod fillet, resting on a bed of cherry tomatoes—just blistered, sweet as candy. Butter-glossed baby potatoes. Slivers of zucchini, barely kissed by heat. All in a saffron-scented broth that whispered of southern France but roared like a Nor’easter.

A final scatter of chives.A drizzle of olive oil. A plate that didn’t just taste good—it told the whole damn story.

I served it to Lady Ashton.

She took a bite and closed her eyes.

“This is wonderful,” she said.“Did you catch it yourself?”

There was a pause.

I stared into my wine glass. Took a sip. Then looked out the window toward the sea like a man who’d seen things. Smelled things. Lived to tell the tale.

“In a way,” I said. And I meant it.