For my 24th birthday, Josh took me to Balboa Island to satisfy what he likes to call my “mermaid cravings” at Fly ‘N’ Fish. The food was excellent as well as the scenery & company. The pier we walked down allowed fishing, but it was particularly sad to me–despite my stomach full of sea critters–that there was a large skate hooked onto a fishing line, flailing around with no one to either release or end its suffering. We must’ve spent around 20 minutes on the pier & saw no one return to the line to release or catch the skate. I wanted to free the skate myself, but had no tools to do so & it wasn’t my catch to release. It just seemed irresponsible to leave behind a fishing line without watching over it.