Moving near Puget Sound has exposed us to new experiences. Fishing, crabbing, clamming all new to us. We bought a inflatable boat and tried our hand at those activities. We nearly killed ourselves rowing to a nearby island. Who knew the current was so strong? During crab season we used the boat to put out traps and caught some. However, cooking them wasn’t as successful. And clamming doesn’t need a boat but we tried that too.

As the summers came and went the boat got used less and less. We decided we needed the storage space in our garden shed more than we needed the boat. So I created a Facebook Marketplace listing and hoped we would get a bite. Well, we were fishing of a sort. Several people responded and we settled on a man named Alex, mostly because he could come the day we needed. We met at Walmart.

Turns out Alex is Vietnamese. He moved here with his family 11 years ago. They live in the Seattle area. He also has a home in Vietnam. From a few things he had written on the Facebook thread I understood the boat to be a gift for his children. Which made me happy thinking of the boat being enjoyed.

But, as we talked with Alex he explained that he intended to ship the boat back to Vietnam when he returned. What? A 10 foot long inflated boat, two oars, a pump and a carry bag? The three of us quickly took apart the seats and deflated the boat while Alex repeatedly invited us to visit him in Vietnam. He told us he already had a motor. He would use the boat to fish.

As Drew and I drove home boat-less, I thought about what kind of fish would be caught in our former boat. What adventures lay ahead while traveling from Port Orchard, Washington to a small town an hour south of Ho Chi Minh City. And I thought I had seen everything.