During one of our Florida vacations, our twenty-eight-foot cabin cruiser POLARIS was berthed at a public marina in Fort Pierce. My son Bob, his five year old son David and three of Bob's friends arrived at our cottage to spend a week (no vacation for Ruth!)

We went fishing every day on POLARIS, taking it out through the sometimes dangerous inlet, out past the twelve-mile buoy, just out of sight of land, that marks the near edge of the Gulf Stream.

The inlet was frequently very rough, when wind and tide were at cross purposes. On one trip, little Dave said, "Those waves hurt my feelings!"

We had a fine time catching thirty to forty pound king mackerel, which struck so fast that they often broke lines. Schools of dolphin were often around the buoy. But the biggest thrill came when a huge blue marlin stuck its bill out of the water behind one of the lures, swallowed it, swerved, and broke the twenty-pound line like a thread. We think it was a three hundred pound fish. We were a crew astonished, and secretly relieved, fishermen. Our fishing tackle had not been built to hold such a monster.

Bob's cousin Dave joined us for a few days, and distinguished himself for foolhardiness by diving through a screen of large hooks slashing through the water to rescue an outrigger that had fallen from the boat.