Summer knowledge :: Throwing chum, grilling onions

Working as a galley mate during college summers on a party boat in the small, quiet fishing village back where I came from, I learned these things:

1. If you grill onions at 10:00 AM, people will want lunch by 10:15 AM.

2. The more vociferously a drunk man protests the presence of a girl on a boat, the more likely he is to soon be "paging Ralph" or "paging Captain O'Rourke."

3. Seagulls don't only eat bread from the dumpster behind the bakery; they also catch in mid-air the fish guts and skeletons that deckhands toss over the rails.

4. "First boat to grounds daily," and "heated rails" are both important promises.

5. Bluefish are delicious: brush with olive oil, broil with garlic and onions.

6. If the head cook starts sharpening knives when the ocean gets rough, dance.

7. The more chum you throw, the more fish you catch.

Captain Charlie Becker's "TAMPA VI" from Sheepshead Bay was a 120-foot party boat built by Gulf Craft in 1977. At the time, it was the largest party fishing boat they had built.  In 1986, she was converted into a dinner cruise boat.  She was later sold, and operated as a Galapagos Islands dive boat.  

Her predecessor, the Tampa III