This is my post for #freewriters 2670 prompt lost courage hosted by @mariannewest
What gives us courage? Some people seem to be born with it and others are not. Some would say that I am courageous because of what I did for a living, but that is far from the truth, I did what I knew how to do, which was river fish.
For me, it took courage to take my boat out the inlet but I know my feelings about that come from when I was young and Dad told us he better not catch us in the ocean in our boats. I just realized that might be why I used to get anxiety when going under the bridge in a boat.
Monster Hole is a place in the ocean just south of the inlet, it is a shallow place that when rough makes for good surfing. You can see it on the far right in this photo. When it is calm, it is a good place to fish. On this day there were too many boats for the area to fish so I thought I would try the offshore edge of it.
I set my anchor over and threw out 4 fishing rods. The ocean had a swell and it was breaking on top of Monster Hole. My lines kept getting loose and I thought it was from the swell. It was in an instant that I lost courage when I realized I was too close to the breaking water, I did not anchor that close. I did not have a depth recorder on the boat and when I put my anchor down, it had to be straight up and down and when a swell rolled in and lifted my boat, it lifted my anchor and would push me toward Monster Hole. I was shaking by the time I got the lines in that would get in the prop, the others I left out and got the anchor up, and the motor started just as a wave broke behind my boat. I got to where it was safe to reel the rest of the rods in and then headed for the inlet to river fish, I had had enough of the ocean and was still shaking.
For people who do not know what I am saying, a swell is when the ocean has a roll, the roll can be different sizes. Breaking is when a wave hits a shallow place like a reef and you see the white water.
photos are mine