It’s hot enough to sit around an air conditioner (yes, there are at least a dozen A/Cs in Santa Barbara!) and tell stories about how hot it is. Man, this week has been hotter than a kiss in the back seat of a Chevy on Camino Ciello. Hotter than a sidewalk in Death Valley (not many of those, either).
Feller came into my fishing tackle shop (Hook, Line & Sinker at 4010 Calle Real in Santa Barbara) on Thursday and announced he had heard there was another heat wave forecast for this weekend. I told him I wasn’t convinced that the last one had yet ended because it was still hot enough outside to make lead fishing weights think about melting. I don’t think my bait freezer has had a moment of rest during the day, all week long.
It is hot enough to melt the groceries on the way home. I went grocery shopping and after the 20-minute drive home, I was racing to get the still-partially frozen items into my over-worked freezer. I accidentally left a gallon of milk in my car for an hour and a half, and guess what? It was hot milk through and through.
After buying some live bait (anchovies) at the bait receiver in the harbor and running offshore, I looked in the bait tank and saw that all of the anchovies were swimming as deep down in the tank as they could get. I put my hand down to the bottom and could feel that the water was a couple of degrees cooler near the bottom.
I learned something else that made me raise one eyebrow (that would be the left eyebrow — it has always had it’s own opinions). A clean and intensely sun-heated fillet blade can do a quicker job of cleaning the dinner fish.
I always worry about barefoot customers in my tackle shop because there are sharp things in tackle shops, and should one end up on the floor, I worry about bare feet. I had no worries this week, because no one wanted to walk barefoot from their car to the store.
It is hot enough to send lizards off the rocks after about 15 minutes. Sure, they like their warm rocks and hot sun, but even they have their limits. Most critters find a shady spot, stretch out and hope for a breeze.
Come to think of it, that’s just what I’m going to do.
— Capt. David Bacon operates WaveWalker Charters and is president of SOFTIN Inc., a nonprofit organization providing seafaring opportunities for those in need. Visit softininc.blogspot.com to learn more about the organization and how you can help. Click here to read previous columns. The opinions expressed are his own.
