What I Keep in the Dry Storage, and Why

I learned the sunglasses thing from Dave, another captain I picked up a few tricks from early on. A dozen cheap polarized pairs, kept in my dry-storage up front. Nothing fancy. I buy mine off Amazon. That's an affiliate link, by the way, buy through it and I get a small cut, doesn't cost you anything extra.

Doesn't sound like much until you're forty minutes offshore and someone's squinting at glare instead of watching the bait. You take polarized glasses for granted after a few seasons. Most first-timers don't own a pair, and it never crosses their mind they'll need one until they're already on the water without one.

I added something else to that bin a while back, for a different reason.

One of my first trips as a captain, a customer's wife needed a tampon. I didn't have one and we had to cut the trip short. The entire time we were heading back, I was frustrated that I'd failed at something basic. Not the fishing part, just taking care of the paying customers on my boat. Told myself that wasn't ever going to happen again. Zip-lock bag, a few of everything including bandaids, tucked into the front dry storage. It's been there ever since.

That's the reason a book called Unreasonable Hospitality caught my eye when a buddy of mine was talking about it over a beer. Turns out I was already doing some of what it talks about. I just didn't have a name for it.

The book's about the small stuff businesses do that can turn a routine thing like dining at a restaurant into something customers tell other people about for years. A family mentions offhand they never got a real New York hot dog before their flight home and the waiter has someone run out to get them one, wrapped up, waiting by the door on their way out. The book's full of stories like that.

Charter fishing isn't fine dining, and my dry storage isn't a 7-Eleven. But the idea underneath it holds up. What gets remembered usually isn't the big-ticket stuff. It's the sunglasses somebody didn't think to bring. It's a zip-lock bag that keeps a bad moment from turning into a ruined trip. The book is worth a read if you want the fuller argument. It can help you come up with a few ideas of your own.

None of this costs much. A handful of cheap glasses, a zip-lock bag, that's it. It's not a program and it's not a script. It's just deciding ahead of time that you're going to think about the guests on your boat and help them to have an amazing trip.