“One of the questions I get asked often is “Was Jimmy the adventurer we all think he was?” I thought about the question over the last few days with the upcoming solar eclipse. The last solar eclipse in the U.S. was on August 21st, 2017.
Jimmy was always fully aware of weather, lunar phases and tides. Weeks before the solar eclipse in 2017, Jimmy was talking about it and he was glad he was going to be free that day to watch it. He mentioned a few times if the weather was good we should go tuna fishing and watch the eclipse from offshore. The weather worked out the day of the solar eclipse, it was a nice day to go offshore and a clear day with no cloud cover to view the eclipse. When Jimmy arrived to the boat, he was excited but also realized he forgot his “eclipse glasses”. With some quick thinking (luckily), I called a friend and mechanic Bob Deveglio to see if we could borrow Bob’s welding helmet. Bob offered to lend us his welding helmet and it fit JB perfectly. The adventure began…
We went 45 miles offshore from Montauk, NY to where we expected to find the bluefin tuna we were after. We found the marine mammals in full force - humpback whales, minke whales, finback whales, white sided porpoise and a lot of bait (sand eels) and we marked tuna on the depth sounder. At the time of the eclipse, the whales were feeding aggressively but the tuna disappeared. We didn’t catch the tuna that day but Jimmy got to watch the eclipse offshore and enjoy one of his favorite boat lunches, a lobster roll with hot sauce.
It feels like yesterday that we were going offshore to watch the eclipse in 2017. We hope you get to view the eclipse today (with the proper eyewear) as it will not happen again for another 20 years on August 23rd, 2044.”
See the good side. Always.
-Capt. Vinnie LaSorsa