Desperation Reef

“And what do we find here on this beautiful sea off the California coast? Well, at least four people — three men and a girl — on a commercial fishing vessel, cleaning their catch. See, they’ve got some big ones up on the tables. But why does this look wrong to me? Because the fish look like sharks, that’s why. I’m not so sure these people are playing by the rules out here. Maybe Fish and Wildlife — hi, Craig, hi, Charmaine — would like some video and a CF number. Maybe my brothers and sisters at the Shark Stewards — hi, Booker, hi, Trish! — would like some video, too. So Mae and I are going in for a closer look.”

From a hundred feet away it’s clear to Casey that these model citizens are finning sharks. Not legal, not humane, but very profitable. Black Hat still has his binoculars on him and the cleaning crew is really hustling now, slicing the fins — dorsal, sides, and tail — off the club-stunned sharks, sweeping the bloody-edged silver-blue-black triangles into a bait well and heaving the finless sharks back into the ocean.

Moondance rocks on the chop while Casey shoots video. He notes his GPU location.

“Oh fudge!” he narrates as he resumes shooting. “See this! Those fish will either bleed to death or get eaten by their cousins. Man, there’s threshers and blues and leopards and even a baby great white! See this baby Jaws! And you know where all the fins end up? In soup! In restaurants from California all the way to China! A whole shark sliced up and thrown out to die. Shark fins are the most valuable thing in the sea except for sunken treasure. Shark-finning is illegal and ugly, brothers and sisters. See this! This is a sin against nature!”

The swell rolls Moondance closer to the trawler, Empress II, and Casey gets its CF numbers. Black Hat lowers his binoculars, raises a hand, and flips Casey off. Mae thumps her tail on the padded bench back.

Pulling broadside to the trawler, Casey keeps shooting.

“Good afternoon!”

“Fuck you and die!” shouts Black Hat.

“How much do you get for a pound of thresher fin?”

“No sharks. No fins. This is all legal. License paid.”

“Well, that’s quite a fantasy, Mr. Hat. What port are you out of?”

“Don’t you take video.”

He’s Asian looking, but it’s hard to tell with the hat shading his face. Young, ripped chest like he works out.

The finners keep slicing away and throwing mutilated sharks overboard, barely looking up.

“How can you do that to living things for money?” Casey asks. And considers the dark parallels between what they’re all doing out here. I’m fishing, too, he notes.

“Feed family,” says Black Hat. “Buy American dream. No video. No Fish and Wildlifes to come after us.”

Casey has more than enough video to post. He can edit it down and shoot a sign-off later at home. Post tonight after dinner, PST, a perfect time here, though not so perfect for the East Coast. He lowers his phone, takes another clip of Mae’s trusting face. He’s got, like, tons of posts across his platforms, containing more videos of Mae, probably, than any other creature than himself.

“This is majorly uncool,” he says. “You should think about what you’re doing,” he says. “There are other ways to make a living out here. She’s generous, this ocean.”

“Shut up. Go.”

“I’ll report you to Fish and Wildlife and the Shark Stewards if I see you out here again.”

The finners are still cutting and dropping the bloody black fish into the deep blue water. Pink contrails descend. The finners are laughing now, looking down at Casey. One waves a knife at him.

Casey sets his phone back in the steering cabinet, guns Moondance into a wide one-eighty, and away.

He’s only half an hour from the Oceanside Harbor boat launch — it’s much faster to trailer Moondance from Laguna to Oceanside to fish Desperation Reef — when he sees the ratty blue-and-red trawler lurching at a good pace toward him from the south.

Empress II flies a red-smeared white flag and through his Leicas Casey sees Black Hat waving. He slows and turns Moondance toward the craft.

Comes to a rest within shouting distance.

“We talk!” Black Hat yells.

Casey nudges the throttle, eases Moondance a little closer.

“Don’t post video!”

“I will if I see you finning again.”

“We make a living. We are legal.”

“Come on, bud — you know it’s against the law.”

“If you show or post or tell Fish and Wildlifes, it would be bad for my family. And for you.”

“I don’t groove on threats.”

Suddenly two boats appear from the west. Bigger than Moondance, and coming fast. They converge, Mae sitting up alertly and Casey retrieving his phone, reading trouble.

“Oh fudge, Mae, we have a situation.”

He emails the shark-finning video to himself as the vessels decelerate, lunging deeply — a dark green Luhrs and a Bayliner. He furtively trades out his good phone for his cheap backup burner.