If you don't go, you don't know.

Facing the facts. The ferry runs but twice a week, and the next day was one of them and Tom's last full day visiting. The weather was awful. It blew so hard the night before that it snapped a palm tree off at the ground and dumped it into the sea. It was drizzling.

We really had no choice.

We boarded the ferry amidst threatening skies. If you can imagine riding a bull in slow motion, you'll get an idea as to how comfortable the 90 minute ride was. We had to hang on.

We rented a small car and drove to the flats, searching for any slivers of blue shining through the gray blanket smothering overhead. We rigged up in a howling wind; our leaders perpendicular to rods as they waited for us to tie something on.

We saw our first bonefish within minutes, but only because it saw us first. This was going to be tricky.

We fanned out in a phalanx of three with me in the middle. I'd spot for the two newcomers and defer all bones to them. I had a huge bunny streamer on my 10wt and was looking for big predators. It cast and landed as gracefully as a wet sock.

The clouds moved overhead at an unreal speed. It was as if a dimmer switch for the world was constantly being fiddled with. Bright as midday, dark as dusk, brighter, brighter, dark. Cloud shadows blitzed across the surface of the flat and it was possible to follow their movement with your eyes as they raced towards the horizon.

I saw a large number of fish, but unaccustomed eyes were having a tough time finding what to cast to. More often than not, fish would surprise us by leaving at top speed before we knew they were there.

Eventually, after a few frustrating shots, Tom made it happen with an average bone. The fish only had the lower half of it's tale, so could only fight at 50% power.

Did I say it was windy?

Half a tail.

Camo.

As the day wore on, we sought shelter near a small bridge in an alcove from the wind. Tom and Wayne caught some overenthusiastic ladyfish and tossed them skyward to the prehistoric frigatebirds. They caught the small fish on the wing and squawked their thanks.

Frigate makes off with a meal.

We bucked in slow motion for another 90 minutes before arriving on the home island. That night, Tom sorted his things and gave me some of the unused flies he tied. They were proven, and I'd put them to good use sooner or later.

A school surprises Wayne and then bolts as he stands frozen.

Wallowing in the mud on the trek back to the car.

Great Days.

After our first-ever guided trip, Adam picked us up at the dock in the rental and we headed back to the flats. We were there to fish, after all.

A blown-apart low pressure system was making its way through the area, giving us some incredible weather phenomena during our times spent wading the shallows. Intermittent sun and glare-filled shade caused a start-stop-start-stop shuffling routine on the flats. No use in moving when you can't see what's out there to spook.

Wading the flats with two others is an interesting experience. Long stretches of silence are punctuated by terse statements or rhetorical questions. "Shark over here." "Nettles are kicking my ass." "Look at that cloud."

The longer the last spoken words ricochet around in your head the more abstract they become. The less real. Who said them? Did anyone really say anything? Probably not. After an hour of silently ruminating on something stupid one of you might have said while baby-stepping through a muddy, shoe sucking lowland, your mind becomes blank. You aren't thinking. Some ancient lobe of your brain scans the landscape from your eyes looking for prey items, but you aren't aware of it. All the better.

And then you see a bonefish.

We hit a tiny bridge as the tide emptied, looking for something to ambush and played with a few over enthusiastic ladyfish.

A blacktip chased one of the ladyfish down but missed. Mark had him on the next cast. They fight very well.

Mark got another blacktip 30 minutes later.

As the sun set, we explored some abandoned condos. Adam rescued this heron that was trapped in a closet. We saw on the leaning porch and ate our ravioli, cold and straight from the can. The low pressure system made for an incredible sunset.

That night, we set up the tent on the sand and headed back to the ferry dock for some tarpon. As lightning illuminated the horizon, we hooked and landed a whole bunch of tarpon. Adam slayed, as usual, with four tarpon in one night.

Polished steel.

We were now about halfway through our entire trip. We had one more day on this island before the ferry took us home. It was an incredible day, starting on our first guided trip and ending with some tarpon at the dock. As we crawled into the tent as the wind howled around, we only looked forward to our last day there, and the more than a week we had left on our home island.