one pound fish 🐟 – miami and cape canaveral

In February of this year (2025), I went to Cape Canaveral with some friends to try out deep sea fishing for the first time! 🐟

I never really had any appetite for fishing, as I wasn’t particularly interested in eating fish, or waiting hours in silence on a boat for my line to tug. But a close friend convinced me that deep sea fishing was different, and I figured that since he was willing to schlep it out from Jersey to Florida to make this happen, I was sold. In any case, in my current life phase, I haven’t been saying no to many spontaneous plans regardless of whether or not they’re aligned to what I perceive to be my personal taste… This strategy has been bearing fruit!

It was also a good excuse to finally try out the BrightLine, so I started and finished the trip in Miami. Was working most of the daytime while I was there, but might decide to take a proper break the next time I go!

A note on the title: Here’s the reference. Here’s what it’s matured to. This was our anthem throughout the trip, and apparently everybody knew about this phenomenon beforehand except me. Even our ship captains were singing this nonstop.

cute little lifeguard hut on miami beach

Arrival

The night before I got there, I contracted such an ungodly awful fever 🤒 and cough and stuffy nose. It was insanely debilitating, but I had too much invested in the fishing trip already, so I drugged myself heavily 💊, masked up 😷, and dragged myself to the airport (5am flight 😭).

Once I got there around 8am-9am, the Airbnb check-in would not be available until later in the day, so I just took myself and my bag to the beach, and lied there heavily clothed under the hot South Florida sun, blipping in and out of fever dreams for 5 hours. Do not recommend. I wish I had more to say about my first couple days in Miami, but it’s all just a haze. I started feeling well enough to exist by the time my BrightLine train from Miami to Orlando rolled into the station.

The Fishing

This was truly an awesome experience – early morning drive down to the marina, navigating through a dense fog, past cruise ships and SpaceX recovery boats, until we were finally out far enough to check the radar for schools of fish.

This is where deep sea fishing started to differentiate itself. The boat was kitted out with all the cheat-codes; I wish that I had asked the captain more about how it all worked! But he would troll in circles above schools of fish visible on his radar, at different depths throughout the trip.

fish control panel

Don’t know where to stick this in the narrative, but another cool thing was seeing SpaceX Starlink deployment rockets go up while we were out on the water! 🚀

There were 5 of us on the boat, and once we caught some steam, there was a fish landing on the deck of the boat at least once a minute. All the while, our captain would be bouncing between turning the boat, re-hooking and baiting our lines, warding off sharks that were stealing our catch, and spearing our catches to drag them onto the deck before tossing them in a freezer. He was genuinely swash-buckling around, and you could tell that he’d been doing this for pretty much his whole life. Strongly recommend Captain Ethan from Sealeveler Sport Fishing Charters.

Here was our first day’s catch:

the catch

The BIG narrow grey fish were king mackerel. The smaller folks are split between red snappers, lane snappers, and mangrove snappers. Our tastiest catch for sure were those top-row triggerfish. We confirmed this when we skinned our catch back at the marina and brought it to the ocean-side restaurant and tiki bar for grilling! They took our catch and seasoned it and made fish tacos and cutlets for us, and I have never enjoyed fish more than I did that day!

the marina restaurant where we could bring our catch from the day and have it grilled up for us!!

our catch, seasoned and grilled for our pleasure

presenting our catch to a carnival cruise ship

presenting my fish to friends’ cameras

Back in Miami

Most of my sightseeing in Miami was limited in that I ended up working way more than I expected on this trip :sad:

That said, still got to:

• work out of a few gorgeous shops
  • Magdalena Coffee and Houseplants
  • Cafe Novela Social
• eat really tasty food
  • Old’s Havana Cuban Bar and Cocina
  • Tacology Wynwood
  • Lung Yai Thai Tapas
  • Miami Mojito Company
  • Bayside Marketplace, tons of tasty options here
• bike around town on citibikes
  • This is how we got to Calle Ocho from Miami beach.
  • Not fantastic bike infrastructure, but also not bad at all! Bike lane from Miami Beach to the mainland was super pleasant.
• experience Miami public transit
  • Big +1 for the BrightLine, this was a clean and premium and organized experience
  • Also solid +1 for the Miami Mover, the airport line that also might be good for some commuters
  • big big BIG -1 for the bus system. Late, infrequent, hot, crowded, gets stuck in traffic 😭
• marinate on the beaches for a while
  • As is probably pretty well-known, South Beach had the best beaches! Expansive, lil areas for recreation, close to some solid food (though all the food that I really liked was on the mainland)
• stop by a few museums!
  • Wynwood Walls, not exactly a museum but still pretty cool
  • Perez Art Musuem, relatively small compared to the museums in NYC but well-curated!

Here’s a map of all the recommendations:

Other Loose Highlights

a trolley-style bus roaming miami

me being sick as a dog on the first day of fishing, hiding from the world in my hoodie

benevolent captain ethan chopping it up after the catch, with a hungry onlooker

a many pound fish

brendan and I biking from South Beach to Calle Ocho to see CJ

some daring street art

same guy but in context

inside wynwood walls, a street art exhibit

the pretty exterior of the miami mojito company

night-time on the sculpture grounds of the perez museum

we have one like this in new york!! except not as /modern/. is this a crypto thing??