I met Sid in November 2005 after I’d recently taken over the editorship of the glossy monthly ‘Greater Phuket Magazine’ and an early assignment saw me angling for a berth aboard one of the boats participating in the dubiously-named ‘Up It’ Big Game Fishing tournament, which was run annually out of the ramshackle beachside Tamarind Bar overlooking Chalong Bay.
Good fortune smiled on me, as one of a quartet of English ‘Hookers’ had succumbed to the charms of a local lass and abandoned his fishing chair aboard the boat they’d chartered.
So, on a blistering morning in November I took the place of the errant Lothario aboard a cruiser populated by a trio of beer-guzzling Englishmen hell-bent on emulating Ernest Hemingway’s piscatorial, and possibly alcoholic, excesses.
As we cruised out to the deep Andaman waters beyond the continental shelf, I had the pleasure of meeting Sidney Carter from Southampton on England’s southeast coast for the first time. He gave me a wry, understated smile, which over the years I came to recognise as a signature of Sid’s wry, understated sense of humour. He explained that the ‘lads’ were all passionate fishermen who’d saved all year for this trip and intended to make the most of it.
Looking about me, I realised that the lads were not really ‘lads’ at all, as their median age hovered somewhere in the late 50s, but what they lacked in youth they certainly made up for with their laddish banter, boyish enthusiasm and that unshakable optimism which seems to characterise followers of this particular sport.
Gentlemanly protocols had been established over morning coffee about how we would take turns to handle the rods whenever there was a strike. These were immediately forgotten as bodies were shouldered out of the way and tackle boxes went flying as soon as the first fish of the day bit.
Sid was soon in the ancient fighting chair and Pete was fighting his fish standing up, with his rod butt stuck in a very painful-looking part of his anatomy. The battle raged for about 10 minutes of sweating, pumping, swearing action, then we saw the startling silver arrows of the fish darting through the water, as firstly a very angry Wahoo, and then an even angrier Barracuda, were pulled aboard.
The day progressed in a blur of fishy action, blazing sunshine, copious libations and enormous fun and camaraderie.
Sid and I bonded over celebratory drinks that evening in the Tamarind Bar and I learned that we had much in common in addition to our shared passion for fishing. We shared work backgrounds in the advertising and communications industries; a passion for ‘slow’ immersive travel and getting to know other cultures and peoples; a love of good food complemented by the occasional ‘tipple’; and a love of music and in particular jazz, although it turned out that Sid was indeed a very accomplished saxophonist with his own band ‘Sunflower’, who were well-known around the Southampton environs.
Our friendship blossomed and over the following years Sid came and stayed with me at my beachside cottage on Chalong Bay at the appropriately-named ‘Fisherman Way’. We journeyed down to Koh Lanta and stayed together in a sumptuous mountainside pool villa at Pimalai Resort overlooking the fabulous Kantiang Bay, then in little wooden fishermen’s cottages out on stilts over the water in Lanta Old Town.
I also had the pleasure of staying with Sid at his house in Southampton near the lovely River Itchen, one of England’s most famous trout streams. I also enjoyed Sid playing and singing at jazz gigs in Southampton’s live music venues.
Whether on the deck of that chaotic heaving fishing boat off Phuket, where I first met him, or on the quiet evening terrace of his local the White Swan pub overlooking the River Itchen, Sid always struck me as a kind, gentle soul, a true ‘gentleman’ with all the charming old-fashioned values which that approbation conjures up. The sort of Phuket aficionado who perhaps represents a quieter, gentler type of touristic appreciation than seems to be the norm today.