“There she is! I have to say, you took today like a champ.”
Eric, the captain of the Pirate Clipper, and his first mate Jon, were sitting at the wide square bar at the Crow’s Nest when I walked in.
Situated on a dock in Lakeside Marblehead directly on the water, the restaurant is a haven of sorts for fishermen who spend the season living on their boats. Just outside the window, I could see rain falling on the bay. Across from Eric was Bear, the friendly captain of a competing charter. When I arrived, Eric was ribbing Bear about our 24 fish to his 15.
Eric looked around the room and gestured to me as I took a seat at the bar.
“This girl! For the record, I’ve never seen anyone throw up so many times and keep smiling,” he said.
The room was amused and I laughed and ordered a sprite while Jon and Eric haggled with the cook over how to fix our fish. When we’d left the boat, they had taken my six Walleye to the fish cleaner, then to the kitchen at the Crow’s Nest.
In the meantime, I had gone back to my motel, taken about an hour-long hot shower, cranked the heat up to 75, and drank a hot cup of coffee. When Eric had texted, I’d exchanged the work boots and fleece for nice jeans and a sweater and headed west toward Marblehead to go feast on Walleye.
The restaurant was cozy and bright, juxtaposed against the wind and rain across the bay outside. After a while, the cook stopped at our table.
“What do you want me to do with the cheeks?” he asked.
“Oh, I didn’t know we got cheeks,” Eric said.
“Yeah we got the cheeks,” Jon said. “Just fry them up.”
I felt silly but in my mind I couldn’t picture what part of a Walleye they were talking about.
“Cheeks?” I asked.
Jon closed his mouth and puffed out his cheeks and I laughed.
A few minutes later, the waitress had delivered a copious amount of Walleye; fried chunks, long fillets and, sure enough, a pile of pan-fried cheeks.
I popped one in my mouth right away. It was light, perfectly seasoned and delicious. On my list of planned adventures I’d written, “Eat something I’ve never eaten.” With the fresh-caught Walleye cheeks, I could cross that off the list.
As we ate, Eric and Jon told me stories about their years on the lake. They talked about storms with 10-foot waves and fish they’d caught that were literally eating other fish when they were reeled in.
But they also agreed that today had been special, too.
Eric pulled out a t-shirt and handed it to me. It said, “Pirate Clipper. Take what ye can and give nothing back.”
“You earned this today,” he said. “I’m serious. You didn’t let out a peep of complaint and we both know how sick you were. Plus, I don’t know what we would have done without you when it came to communicating with our other passengers.”
I grinned and thanked him. On the back of the t-shirt is a picture of The Pirate Clipper. I remembered the morning, the warm cabin and the cold rain, the shiny green fish and steering the ship toward the harbor.
As I walked out of the Crow’s Nest and into the rain, I smiled. I would wear it with pride.