Pinkies

It was another beautiful summer day on the water. The wind came around easterly bringing us a cool refreshing breeze. Yesterday I saw the characteristic so'west haze blanketing the horizon and suspected it would be a hot one--glassy calm and humid. Today things dried out a bit and the breeze picked up, propelling many sailboats and cooling us off. Colorful spinnakers billowed in the distance--one was Kelly green another rust-colored.

I was tearing around deck in my usual trap-setting frenzy, tallying my mental checklist of components. Sink rope, float rope, buoys, toggles, bait bags baited and on irons, tailer warps. . . check, check, check. We store warps of rope in barrels, since it helps to organize things. I got to the bottom of the barrel of tailer warps and had to dive into it headfirst to reach the last few coils. I emerged and looked down to see how many were left. There nestled in the last coil was a little, brown nest of dried leaves and soft fuzz. Three tiny baby mice squirmed in the middle of the nest. Their skin was almost translucent and pink. They had delicate white whiskers and tails. Their eyes hadn't even opened yet.

I couldn't help but marvel at such vulnerable little beings in the midst of such a harsh environment. The barrel had been sitting in Cap's yard, a stable and safe setting until it was plopped on the boat. Suddenly they found themselves surrounded by salt water in a vibrating, loud, rough and tumble world. There is nothing forgiving about life on the boat. Horrific spiny creatures (lobsters and sculpins) emerge from the depths of the sea and a grizzly human (me) bangs things around all day, not to mention that the entire surface is in constant motion. It's a wonder that they didn't get seasick! So I gently plucked the nest from the coil and secured it in a bait bag, setting it aside to bring to land at the end of the day.

Cap wasn't quite as taken with the critters as I was. He sees mice as a threat to his rope. Sure enough, they (or more likely their folks) had gnawed through one coil. He jestingly suggested placing them on a piece of driftwood and setting them adrift (a kind way of saying drown them) than preserve them.

I set the bait bag with the nest in a bucket and brought it to shore when the day was done. A fisherman friend of mine was in the parking lot and I showed him my "catch," then carefully released their cozy nest in the woods. Who knows if they'll make it, but at least they have a chance now. My friend Annie informed me that baby mice are called "pinkies" and are sold as food for pet reptiles. It seems like everyone has it in for them, poor things!

I marveled at the compassion that I had for such destructive little rodents, when I don't think twice about clobbering a sculpin with all my might to knock it out and then butchering it for bait. Our minds draw sometimes illogical distinctions between "right" and "wrong." For some reason, I don't have a problem killing fish for bait or food whereas I couldn't justify killing pinkies just because. I felt moved to help out those pathetic little critters that didn't seem to have a chance in the world, while I don't hesitate to destroy sculpins, which eat just about anything that lies in their path. Mother Nature works curious magic. As with the case of the sunfish, the fittest aren't the only ones to survive. Sometimes the runts surprise us.