PROVINCETOWN – As the final sunset of the most epic summer ever appropriately melted into a psychedelic realm, a no-last-name fisherman named Sean from Amherst said he wasn’t expecting to catch any fish.
“I’m just enjoying the sunset,” said the 24-year-old fisherman standing on Race Point Beach.
He said he used to play lacrosse and described throwing a rod as similar to the throwing motion in lacrosse. He kept throwing. No fish were biting while we watched. He did seem to enjoy the sunset.
In the distance, one boat engine whirred. A few seals popped their heads up.
The ocean vista at Race Point is almost endless, which allowed sky to segue from a shade of cotton candy pink in the east to lusty red in the west. And in between, there were endless technicolor permutations as one spun to look and as each minute passed.
Down the beach, Brendan Murphy and his wife, Sophie Blakemore were more hopeful about catching fish.
“It’s peaceful. It’s tranquil. It’s zen. It’s you and the rod and the water, and hopefully something on the other end of the line.” – Sophie Blakemore
Sophie, who was raised in England, recalled a group of seals darting through the water in July when Brendan caught a “massive bluefish,” she said. So seeing seals on this night made her confident “they are here because there are fish here.”
Brendan, however, said the seals often steal the fish and he added that he thinks that, because of the seals, the odds of catching a fish have dropped in half in the past ten years.
But he was hopeful they would get a bluefish or a striped bass.
While Sophie expressed a similar hope, she was more philosophical. “I’d never imagined myself living outside of England,” she said. “Now I am here at the most magical, beautiful place on Earth. I never thought I would find a place where my soul felt so at peace.”
She came to Provincetown three years ago as a tourist, when she met Brendan, who was a videographer on the Dolphin Whale Watch boat. Now, he is a landscaper, and she is a videographer on the Dolphin. They live in Eastham.
After she finished work, he picked her up and then they came here to go fishing.
Sophie looked around and said “This is better than going out for a meal, or anything you can spend money on. And it’s free.”
“It’s peaceful,” she said. “It’s tranquil. It’s zen. It’s you and the rod and the water, and hopefully something on the other end of the line.”
Even if it’s just a sunset.
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