The reel screams at ten-fifteen in the morning on day seven of the Pacific passage. The boat is making eight knots in the trade wind, the trolling line has been running from the stern cleat since the departure five days ago, and the specific pitch of the reel going is the pitch that everyone on deck recognises and that produces the immediate response of the person nearest the rod reaching for it while the rest of the watch does what the crew does when the line is running: reduce sail slightly to slow the boat, clear the cockpit of anything that does not belong near the fight.
The fish is a yellowfin tuna, approximately eight kilograms, on the deck within twenty minutes of the reel going. The trolling line produced it from the same Pacific that the boat has been sailing through for five days and that the twelve members have been watching from the deck and sleeping above. The fish that was in the ocean an hour ago is now on the cutting board on the aft deck, and the question of what lunch will be has been answered by the ocean rather than by the provisioning plan.
Forty Minutes From Ocean to Table
Richard takes the fish from the aft deck to the galley. He has been watching the reel from the moment it went, not because he was waiting for the fish specifically but because the offshore chef is always running the background calculation of what the day might produce and how it changes what the day’s meals will be. The yellowfin in August in the Pacific trade wind belt is the fish for the tataki: the sear on the cast iron at maximum heat, thirty seconds per side, the soy and the ginger and the sesame oil from the stores, the spring onion from the deck pot.
The fish that was alive in the Pacific at ten-fifteen is on the table at eleven forty-five with the specific qualities of the very fresh offshore catch that the professional restaurant, however excellent, cannot produce because the restaurant’s supply chain does not begin at the stern cleat of a moving boat in the middle of the ocean.
The twelve people who eat it are the twelve people who were on deck when the reel screamed. They were there when it happened. They saw the fish come aboard. They watched Richard take it to the galley. They sat down at eleven forty-five and ate the thing that was in the ocean they have been sailing through for five days. The supply chain is as short as supply chains get. The lunch is as fresh as lunch gets. The specific pleasure of the meal is not separable from the specific pleasure of knowing exactly where it came from and exactly how long ago it was there.
