9 years since Rene has passed Horizonless

Horizon less

Nine years has passed since Rene Dedios has died; time goes by so fast it’s scary, and all I’m left with is memories that I try to hold onto like rollercoaster handle bars of times spent time with what I believe was the realist most fearless shark fisherman I ever met and possibly one of the best that walked the earth. This memory takes us to another country that sits only 48 miles away from Florida’s coast the year is 1998 and the month was early April, it’s a time of year that us Hispanics call the cuaresma, which is early spring, a lot of people who attend church and read the bible believe that Easter was the time Jesus Christ was sacrificed and some church goers have a theory that during the spring time God gets angry from the brutal death of his son and makes the wind blow uncontrollably , which doesn’t sound too far fetch considering how the wind usually gusts during the spring. Anyways back to the story the problem with getting to the small Island of Bimini is not the distance but crossing the potentially deadly gulfstream its approximately 2500ft-4000ft deep and its current travels north at roughly 6mph and when the wind blows at 20+knots from the north and meets the current head on, say your prayers to whatever God you believe in if you’re out there cause it’s going to get nasty. Its ocean floor has even claimed the biggest and baddest Multi-million dollar yachts, Hatteras, Viking, Bertram you name it’s no match for the Gulfstream’s unforgiving waves.
My father Rene and I wake up early and leave out of black point marina with my father’s 23ft walk around loaded to the max with 14’0s gas, bait, ice, the whole nine, on the way we meet up with my father’s cousin just outside government cut who’s riding in a 27ft twin engine open fisherman, after greeting one another we begin our 48 mile journey to the east, the wind is coming from the NE at approximately 15knots so to say the least it bumpy but we manage, a trip that is usually done in the summer’s calm seas in a hour and a half turns out more like 2 and a half hours, we finally arrive to the tiny island beat up with red eyes from the salt water splashing our faces for hours and knees soar from trying to keep balance during all the bumpy waves, we dock our boats eat lunch and check in with customs , my father’s cousin and crew were planning on heading to another island to the east of Bimini and we were headed south to Ocean Kay so after saying good bye to one another we parted ways at Bimini’s dock and off we go again for a 26 mile trip south , after a little bit more bumping and driving around we finally arrive to our spot a few hours before sundown we anchor the boat and begin fishing.
Rene wastes no time he gets some big king fish on live yellowtails and begins to decapitate them for shark bait, he is constantly humoring my father and I as we fish for yellowtail, we are all having a blast and just before sunset Rene gets his first shark a Lemon about 8’6 he gets it boat side and releases it. My father and I are exhausted from the trip and decide to hit the sack, but Rene ignores my father and I’s attempt to rest as he constantly yells hour after hour to help him with another shark, and then another (I swear I don’t know how he had the energy) Early in the morning we start to grouper fishing with 6/0’s and live yellow tails but these fish are massive and on steroids they start rocking us time after time until we bring out the 9/0’s but to no avail they keep rocking us like if we had light tackle Rene after about the 9th pop off gets so frustrated he decides to drop his 14/0 I know this is hard for some to believe but it happens again Rene tries to prevent it by holding his huge harnell against the gunnel of the boat but it still happens rocked again with the 14/0 we think that they are groupers and cuberas over 100lbs but who knows they certainly would not come to the surface to show us, we have mackerel everywhere in the chum slick and all seems well but suddenly we feel a strong breeze begin from the north and it’s about to change all of our plans for the worse.
My father turns on the VHF to the weather channel and confirms our worst case scenario the wind has shifted and has now started to blow from the North at 20-25 knots with even higher gusts, and soon being anchored in 95ft of water becomes near impossible waves began to crash over the bow of the boat and bring massive amounts of water inside, it’s time to lift anchor and head closer to the island for shelter from the uncontrollable wind. After lifting the anchor we head to the south side of the tiny island of Ocean Kay it’s unpopulated but has a huge freighter docked there so we head near the huge vessel and throw the anchor beside it to be protected from the blowing wind and waves. Now anchored and smelling diesel smoke from the generators of the huge ship docked next to us, the feeling of defeat comes into play first all the monster fish we had lost in the infamous Bahamian ledges and now defeated by the waves hiding like scared rats behind a huge ship because of the weather. Rene bored decides to grab mackerels out of the cooler and starts shark fishing, while anchored in hell, and begins telling us stories and begins to deter us from the issue at hand. Rene gets a few nice shark hits but no hook ups and the fish aren’t really biting.
Two days have now passed and we are all feeling anxious of this situation, everyone is feeling edgy and frustrated. We are all awake eating breakfast cooked from our little gas grill, with not much being said from any of us, and all appearing to be thinking of a solution, My father looks at Rene and asks “I wonder if we could cross back to the states with this wind?” Rene who’s more experienced with boating and used to being in these kind of predicaments looks up slowly and says “If we go slow I think we should be fine” just then another gust of wind howls in as a reminder of what’s out there . We all talked it over and decided to attempt to cross the next morning back to Florida’s coast. The next morning arrives and around 8am we lift anchor and we begin to leave the refuge of the huge ships south side and the moment we pull away from it we feel the wind howling and we slowly start to cruise back to the states.
Rene whom appears to know what we are about get into puts on his rain coat, pants and boots grabs the fighting chair and positions it looking to the rear of the boat and grabs 2 dock lines cleats one on the rear starboard and one on the rear port and wraps one around each arm tightly and sits on the fighting chair. My father is driving the boat and I am on the passenger side. About 5 miles off the coast of Ocean Kay we start running into bigger and bigger waves that are very intimidating but still manageable at least for now that is. As time passes the waves get even bigger and in the near horizon I see something that appears to be mount Everest a wave so big it looks like a mountain as we approach the monster wave my father accelerates the engine for momentum to climb this mountain and the 250hp mercruiser that usually does 35knots with no problem is barely making it to 6 knots to the pins, but manages to climb it but going down is the scary part, we start descending on the monster wave at what felt to be a 90degree angle and hit the bottom of it with so much force that my father hit his abdomen on the steering wheel extremely hard (later confirmed to be 3 fractured ribs) and I busted my lip open on the console and loosened 2 teeth, F**K we are in trouble I remember telling myself water in the boat is ankle deep and Rene is screaming in the back of the boat like he has a hammer hooked on, some of the heavy coolers filled with yellow tail and ice crashed against him and now have him pinned to one side of the boat , with no time to recover our balance from the wave another one hits us almost completely sideways, throwing us and the coolers like rag dolls to the other side of the boat. My father eventually manages to straighten out the boat again, waves are slowly getting bigger and bigger, they are so big I don’t even want to make an estimate it would just create doubt to the readers of this story, lets just say they are F**CING Huge, leaving it impossible for us to even see the horizon, which does nothing for us but break our already tired spirit. Up and down we went like a leaf in a rapid river for a grueling 9 HOURS of hell and we finally made it to Florida’s coast beat to hell but thank God alive. One of the most scariest times of my life and hopefully I never have to experience something like that again, but I do love crossing that gulfstream to fish those incredible Bahamian Reefs, I see now as time passes on how much I enjoyed fishing with Rene and how much I miss him they truly don’t make them like that anymore, I am always thinking about you buddy your good friend.

Will