Nick Honachefsky and I are laughing and reminiscing over baskets of fish tacos. This reunion in downtown San Diego at Roxy’s Tacos is nearly 15 years in the making.
The host of Saltwater Underground with Nick Honachefsky is in town to shoot the first West Coast episode for his cult-classic fishing show.
Three seasons of New Jersey-centric Saltwater Underground have appeared on the Sportsman Channel. The show just got picked up by Discovery Channel. It fits comfortably into a network lineup with eclectic fare such as Naked and Afraid, Alaskan Bush People and Moonshiners.
Honachefsky’s shoot here in San Diego includes Pacific Ocean forays for dorado with local skateboarding legends Mike McGill and Bucky Lasek. Both world-class skaters are now prolific fishermen.
The episode is viewable online. You can watch the whole 23-minute video on YouTube. It leads with a great homage to skateboarding. Check out a classic clip of McGill doing the sport’s first 540-degree mute grab aerial, nicknamed “The McTwist.”
Along with angling, each episode of Saltwater Underground includes a culinary segment. That’s why Honachefsky and I are sampling Roberto “Junior” Bermudez’ legit Tijuana-style offerings at Roxy’s Tacos on C Street in East Village.
If you want to jump to our Roxy’s segment, fast forward on the YouTube video to the 17:32 mark.
Honachefsky and I met in 2008 on a press junket to the British Virgin Islands. I was writing about the trip for San Diego Magazine. Journalists from all over converged to sail the islands on two ritzy boats, where we also lived for a week.
Rarely without a Red Stripe or a rum-based Painkiller in hand, we toured the northeastern Caribbean. The two of us bonded over a mutual predilection for quotes from Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy.
After one too many “Milk was a bad choice,” “Agree to disagree,” or “Stay Classy, San Diego” recitations, the trip organizers asked us to travel from island to island on separate boats.
Free-spirited and gregarious, Honachefsky proved to be a world-class elbow bender at Soggy Dollar Bar on Jost Van Dyke in the BVI.
At the same time, he displayed an amazingly well-versed knowledge of fish taxonomy. One day, he was pointing at a school of fish in the Caribbean and labeling them down into species and genera.
I was like, “Slow down–are you talking about that blue one?”
BVI in 2008 is the last time we’d seen each other in person. Until we meet up here on the urban patio at Roxy’s Tacos in September of 2022.
Honachefsky’s cameraman collects footage while we laugh and recall bygone days.
It’s a treat to reconnect on film, much less for a TV segment.
The smiles are genuine and the memories are clear, even though the years having lent a salty look to my once peppery hair and visage.
The fish tacos are flavored with secret family recipes for meat seasoning and hot sauce.
This particular meal is doubly enriched by memories of a refried friendship–one forged at sea and seemingly zip-sealed in time’s storage locker. SDSun
(Episodes of Saltwater Underground air on Sportsman Channel on Sundays at 6 a.m. PT, Mondays at noon and Fridays at 7:30 a.m.)
