By: Capt. Tim Ramsey
“Que sera, sera.” Whatever will be, will be. It’s an interesting philosophy but a bad lesson in planning and leadership.
The 1955 song was about something called “cheerful fatalism,” which suggested everything in life is left to fate, outside human influence, and we should cheerfully accept that lack of control. The song was originally created for an Alfred Hitchcock movie where the theme was people can be the complete opposite of what they seem. So can boating and fishing. Here’s what I mean.
You take your little Jon boat out on a calm day and anticipate a successful trip. Then your engine quits in a hard current in the middle of the pass leading to the Gulf, and you find out the hard way your dinky little anchor doesn’t have the chain needed to get it to the bottom and the rope is too short. Or you realize you’re careening toward a pier, or a big boat is coming with a huge wake behind it, and you never actually practiced putting on the life jacket that is stuck under the seat.
One day, I was cruising around on absolutely glass slick water somewhere near the Naftal reef south of Cape Romano when I noticed something off in the distance. For a moment, I thought supernatural beings were standing side-by-side on the surface of the water. I immediately cut the throttle and grabbed the little pair of binoculars I kept in the console. My supernatural subjects turned out to be three people standing in a swamped boat. I eased over to them and asked their status, and they said a boat wake came by and swamped them. One guy was so big the camouflage life vest on him looked like an airplane pillow. I asked them why they took a freshwater boat with a freeboard of about fourteen inches so far from land. They said the weather report said it was going to be calm and they wanted to go grouper fishing. A woman on the boat shouted, “how do we call 911.” Yep. I know. A guy asked me if I could retrieve their cooler floating about a quarter mile away. Chances are before the trip, the captain said, “it will be fine.” What he should have said was “Que sera, sera.”
Another day, I was way back in the mangroves snook fishing. I noticed a small boat pass by the entrance to the little lagoon I was in. About thirty minutes later, I saw it going the other way. I cruised out of the lagoon on the trolling motor casting to the bank as I went, and as I rounded the mouth of the creek leading to a larger bay, the other boat was coming back again. When they got close, I noticed a guy with a look of surprise on his face and a woman crying. I clicked off the trolling motor and waited for them to get closer. Turned out they were lost, looking for the way out of the back country for over an hour. Instead of saying “oh well, whatever will be, will be,” and leaving these frantic mangrove neophytes to their own devices, I told them to not worry, it wasn’t far, and just follow me. I took about twenty minutes to show them to safety and got back to fishing.
Hey Tim, what’s the point? Always be prepared. Know how to operate your boat. Have the necessary navigational aids and practice with them. Know your area. Be ready for emergencies. Expect the unexpected. Prevent problems. Know your capabilities and limits. Sure, some people operate their boats carelessly and/or recklessly, but that comes back to bite people and it’s not worth it. Not many things feel worse than seeing someone get hurt and suffer over something stupid or careless you did.
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