It'd been a very long time since Joe had a decent vacation. For over 30 years he worked in a factory in Michigan and he never went anywhere when he had time off. He had friends at work who told him about the great fishing vacations they took in the Florida Keys and he was dying to go.
One winter he finally made the arrangements. He boarded a plane to Miami with a reservation at a hotel on the water facing the sunset on the island of Long Key, halfway down the Florida Keys chain of islands. He had a car rental waiting at the airport and easily made the 2-hour trip down through Key Largo, Islamorada, and past the Matecumbe Keys. He had a small rental boat waiting for him at the hotel as well.
The hotel sat within ten feet of the water on the Florida Bay. Outside his room was a long dock where guests tied their boats right at the sliding glass doors to their rooms. The island is only a narrow sliver of land at this far southern point of the island. If you walk across the hotel parking lot and across US 1, you were right on the beach facing the ocean. The hotel was surrounded by water. The Florida Bay on one side, and the Atlantic Ocean on the other side.
The hotel rented small skiffs, but unfortunately several of them were out of the water for repairs. The only boat they had for Joe was a large inflatable boat with a 20 hp outboard motor. They promised that it would only be a day or two before they could give him the boat he was promised. Joe didn't mind because they gave him a discount instead. All he wanted was to get out on the water and go fishing. He knew the inflatable boat would be okay as he wasn't venturing far from land anyhow.
As the slanted November sun broke through the sliding glass door into his room the next morning, he awoke to see the inflatable boat tied to the dock right outside his door. He rushed to put on some coffee, got his fishing gear ready, and packed a small cooler with some sandwiches and beer. In the glaring early morning light, the Florida Bay looked calm and peaceful.
The hotel dock-shop opened at 7 am and he soon had fishing bait and a full tank of gas. He didn't have any trouble pull-starting the motor and he cast the lines from the dock and motored out into the Florida Bay.
Suddenly, he felt free. A feeling that had illuded him for a long time. The warm, sticky air stuck to his face and beard, and he could taste the thick salt on his lips. It was already hot and humid. He took off his shirt and could feel the sultry tropical breeze on his chest and arms. He had waited for this feeling for a long time. To be out on the water, fishing in paradise, without a care in the world.
He ran the boat straight offshore into the Florida Bay and found a spot next to a grassy flat that looked good. He tossed the anchor and put his fishing line in the water. He could see fish breaking on the surface feeding on small bait fish in the shallow rippling water of the morning light. He had a few bites, but the fish were only small snappers and too small to keep. He cast his line many times but had no patience reeling in only small fish. He decided to pull anchor and motor around and find another spot.
Turning the boat back towards land he could see Long Key and the pair of Long Key Bridges that spanned the distance between Long Key and Conch Key. The bridges span three miles across open water where the Atlantic Ocean meets the Florida Bay. He wondered if he'd have better luck closer to the bridge, so he headed that way.
Irena was on Conch Key, on the other end of the Long Key Bridges, further to the south. Her dive boat was loaded and ready to head out to the reef. Looking out over the bay, she could see the crisscross wind patterns on the water and knew it was going to be windy on the reef. She guessed she would be headed out into seas with a 3-to-4-foot chop. To most watermen a 3-to-4-foot chop was easy to navigate in a big boat. To a novice on the water, or anyone in a small boat, a 3-to-4-foot chop could feel like a hurricane.
Almost all tourists and divers Irena took out on the reef in a 3-to-4-foot chop spent the day hanging over the gunnel vomiting a chum line while their faces turned red, purple, and blue. But today, she was headed out to the reef alone. She was used to it. She often went diving on the reef alone. She had no fear of the ocean because she knew the ocean well.
Irena's boat was always loaded and ready to go every day. It was a habit to always ready the boat the night before. It was her normal routine. In the mornings she made coffee, put on her bathing suit, grabbed the coffee, walked out the door, got in the boat and left. The keys were always in the ignition. She was in the boat and headed to the reef in 5 minutes or less. She normally didn't even wake up until she had a scuba tank on her back and fell backwards off the boat into the water. The fresh morning sting of the salty ocean always woke her up.
As she rounded the island and made the wide turn around the sand flat, she saw a small boat running fast and parallel to Long Key Bridge. She was watching the boats' direction and speed because at some point, she had to square up on the bridge perpendicular to it. She had to be dead on straight in order to squeeze the big boat between the concrete pilings of the bridges.
She always used great caution getting close to the bridges. If there were boats on the other side, or divers in the water, she couldn't see them until passing under the bridges. There were 2 bridges, side by side: the old bridge and the new bridge. She had to clear both bridges before she was in open water in the ocean. It was very easy to hit the pilings if you didn't approach the bridge dead straight or calculate the swift current that could turn the boat sideways. She had to be at least half awake just to get through the bridges without incident or accident.
Squaring up to the bridge and looking over her shoulder to check for any gear not lashed down, when she turned back around, she saw the small boat coming at her dead ahead at full speed.
The little midget boat was leaping out of the water, bouncing off the waves, and bucking side to side like the driver was doing tricks or he was drunk. Riding the chop on the water and just being silly, the inflatable boat looked like a bucking bronco. She laughed at the sight of the boat because it really did look like a horse going crazy trying to buck a rider.
Suddenly, the boat shot off to the left away from the bridge and was stuck going around in circles at full speed. Then, it suddenly turned 180 degrees and was circling at full speed in the opposite direction. She became irritated at this point as the driver was impeding her safe passage under the bridge. The driver and the boat were out of control and unsafe. As Irena got closer to the boat, she realized there was no one in the boat! There was no one driving the boat at all!
Quickly scanning the water, she tried to pinpoint where the lost boater might be. He had to be somewhere on the opposite side of where the boat was right now. He had to be between the boat and the bridge because the tide was going out towards the ocean. Whoever had been in the boat was quickly being swept out to sea by the very strong current near the bridges.
She slowed the boats' speed and jumped up on the gunnel and got up on top the cabin of the boat scanning the water far and wide. She ran parallel to the bridge about 100 yards away from it. When her boat started to turn towards the bridge with the outgoing tide, she jumped back down on the gunnel and kicked the steering wheel to the left with her foot. She looked behind her, keeping an eye on the boat that was still going in circles. It ran in circles one way then switched back to circles in the opposite direction. It was plowing full speed through the waves and flipping up in the air. It was as if the boat had lost its' mind and gone wild.
Looking out over the bow again, she suddenly saw a man in the water waving his arms. She jumped down off the top of the cabin and turned the boat away from him, pointing the bow of her boat away from the bridge. She had to let the current take the stern of the boat to him. She had to keep the ocean breeze behind her, or the wind would catch the cabin like a sail and sling the boat into the bridge. She wasn't going to have much time to grab him. If she missed him, he was going to be sucked under the bridge in the current. Because of the wind and the current, she had to skillfully position him right at the stern. Then, at the right moment, she could turn the wheel hard to starboard to position him right next to her, where she was standing at the helm.
When he was right next to the boat, she threw the boat into neutral. She reached down and grabbed his arm and pulled him up onto the low, wide, gunnel of the dive boat.
She couldn't get him all the way into the boat because as it turned out, he was a really big man. He was very physically fit with broad shoulders, big biceps, big chest muscles, and stout tree trunk like legs. For her, he was like trying to lift a truck out of the water.
Laying across the gunnel, the man fell headfirst into the boat and onto the deck. Slumped face down on the deck, he was visibly shaking. He looked up at Vanessa and said, "Thank God you came along! Please excuse me. I've got to lay here and catch my breath!"
Irena laughed. She wrapped a beach towel around his shaking shoulders and said, "Stay right where you are. You're ok. Everything is ok."
She reached into the cooler and handed him a bottle of water he quickly drank down. Irena slammed the throttle into drive as the boat was now drifting dangerously close to the bridge. She grabbed the wheel and headed in the direction of the bucking bronco, still going in crazy circles left and right.
"Did you have a full tank of gas?" Irena asked.
"Yes." He gasped. "I just filled it up this morning and maybe only used about half a gallon."
"Well, I don't know how long it can run like that on 5 gallons but it could be a long time. We might have to shoot it." Irena declared.
"Really? Isn't there any other way to stop it?" He quivered as he stood up.
"Not that I can figure! I just don't know how close I can get and still get a good shot with the thing going crazy in circles like that. It's a moving target doing switch backs. I don't know!" She said as they got closer to the boat.
Just then she looked up and saw the big commercial boat "The Brawler" coming out of the lagoon on Conch Key.
The Brawler was a 42 ft open deck stone crab boat with 2 monster diesel engines. Eddie, the captain, jumped straight up on a plane and pointed the boat towards The Everglades and hammered down on the diesels. Irena knew he was headed towards East Cape, a 2-hour run, to pull stone crab traps for the day. She grabbed the CB radio and tried to call him. She realized he couldn't hear her over his loud diesel engines.
"Sit down and hold on!" she yelled at the man in her boat.
She knew she had to catch Eddie quick because in his big boat, he could rock out of sight in the blink of an eye with those big diesels. Eddie always put the hammer down when he left the island.
The man in her boat stood up and grabbed the chrome hand rail next to the helm. He was standing next to Irena, hanging on for dear life, as they banged thru the chop. Quickly, the boat jumped up on a plane. The flat bottom dive boat instantly skimmed fast across the water.
"Damn! This boat packs a punch!" the man yelled.
She looked at him sheepishly and laughed. Being in a boat out on the water was the only thing she ever knew. Slow wasn't an option getting around the reef to the best fishing and diving spots. He dropped the soaking wet beach towel around his shoulders. His big chest was covered in thick, black, hair that looked perfect soaking wet on him.
"My name is Joe by the way," he said. "Joe Marshall. And you really did save my life today."
Eddie slowed his boat when he saw Irena slinging up to his side, trying to wave him down. She yelled over the diesels at him. "Eddie! That inflatable boat over there has no one in the boat! It's going in circles with a full tank of gas!"
Eddie jumped down from the helm. The helm on Eddie's boat was elevated 10 feet above the boat deck. Up in that cabin he had a birds' eye view across the water to easily see channel markers, other boats, and the buoys marking his stone crab traps.
The Brawler was a really big boat. She looked long and skinny with those low gunnels slightly above the water line, but she had a beam amidship almost 20 feet wide. She was one of the biggest commercial fishing boats in the Florida Keys and could carry 200 stone crab traps.
Eddie watched the inflatable going nuts, laughed and yelled," I guess we'll have to shoot it!"
"That's what I said Eddie, but I'm not sure I can hit it going around in circles like that!" Irena yelled back.
"Well, let me get over there close to it and see what I can do." Eddie laughed as he climbed back up to the helm.
Irena followed Eddie towards the boat gone wild. She stayed far off his stern to give him room to maneuver. Eddie was an experienced master captain of that boat. He could drop it down in reverse and spin it around on a dime. She'd seen him do it many times coming into the fish house dock on the island. When he docked his boat, when he dropped the diesel engines in reverse, it was so loud you could hear it all over the island. No matter where you were on the island, you always knew when Eddie was back at the dock and done for the day.
Suddenly, without warning, Eddie made a hard left and rammed the inflatable boat with the bow of his boat. The inflatable bounced straight up into the air and ricocheted off Eddie's bow and kept on going. The rudder on the little boats outboard flipped to the other side and the inflatable and was now headed across Florida Bay at full speed.
Eddie slammed down the throttle and a huge cloud of black smoke rolled over Irena's boat. Eddie jumped up on a plane and was chasing the inflatable. Irena and the man in her boat thought maybe he was going to try and lasso it next.
Soon, he got up next to it. He was running side by side with it. Instantly, his first mate on jumped off The Brawler and into the bucking inflatable. His mate bounced out of the inflatable like a rubber band and was thrown up into the air then into the water. Irena was laughing so hard she couldn't stand up anymore.
The inflatable hit Eddie's hull again, bounced off, and was now headed straight at Irena's boat. Vanessa slammed down the throttle and made a hard turn to port to avoid being hit by the boat gone wild. She was laughing hysterically as this unmanned inflatable seemed to have a life and a mission of its' own. Eddie made a U turn and retrieved his now drowning first mate out of the water.
Joe wasn't looking so good. His face was turning green and was stumbling around and hanging on for dear life. We were all going in circles and trying not to fall down.
Eddie made a U turn again and headed straight at Irena's boat. Irena and the man in her boat thought they were both about to die. Irena dropped her throttle into neutral, not knowing what Eddie was about to do.
He barely passed her port side with only about a foot to spare between the boats. The wake rocked Irena's boat hard to starboard. Scuba tanks cut loose and rolled around on the deck. Joe was thrown towards the cooler. He took a fast seat on the cooler without a choice as he came under attack by flying scuba tanks. He could no longer keep his balance trying to stand up between the waves and the flying tanks. The three boats had created a sea of typhoon like waves.
In a final attempt, Eddie out flanked the inflatable and had it right up next to his gunnel at his stern again. But this time, he dropped The Brawler into reverse and rammed the inflatable hard with his stern.
It was at that moment the inflatable took flight. It rocketed out of the water and over the stern of Eddie's boat and landed square in the middle of his big open deck. The little outboard engine was screaming out of the water. The motor screeched, spun out, and finally the boat was dead.
Eddie leaned out the helm and yelled, "What the hell am I supposed to do with this thing now?!"
Irena and Joe couldn't yell back. They were falling on the deck laughing. They just saw a big boat kill a little boat without any mercy at all.
Joe got up off the cooler and staggered to the bow. He pulled out his wallet from his soaking wet shorts. He took out a large stack of cash and said, "Here! Take this! Had it not been for you I would have died out here today!"
"Oh! Don't be silly!" Irena laughed. "Put your money away. We do this almost every day. Rescue tourists in distress. But I must confess, this is the first time I ever had to kill a boat." With tears in his eyes, Joe laughed and put his money away.
Irena hollered at Eddie and said, "Haul her on over to Long Key Hotel and I'll follow you."
Eddie's monster boat could barely fit up to the dock at the little hotel. Being the master captain that he is, he inched his way up to it and barely touched the dock when he came in broad side.
Seeing a monster boat alongside his little dock, the owner of the hotel came running out. He was about to start yelling that he couldn't park there. Suddenly, he saw the dead inflatable on the deck of The Brawler. Then he saw the man who rented the inflatable boat in Irena's boat. He was confused. His mouth dropped open, and he stood frozen on the dock frozen. He saw his deflated little boat stone cold dead with no hope of CPR.
Eddie jumped down off the helm and said, "What do you want to do with this thing?! We gotta take her engine off first or we're never gonna lift the whole thing up to the dock!"
Quickly, the men were all hands-on deck. They dismantled the boat and rolled up what was left of it in a ceremonial goodbye. They drug it up onto the dock while water bled from the lifeless hull. The boat had seen its' last day on the water. The little outboard was fried like a piece of burnt toast. But, she went out wild. She went out with guns blazing. It took a 40-foot commercial stone crab boat to take her out.
Joe tried to pay Eddie, but Eddie also refused to take any money. They shook hands and Joe repeatedly thanked Eddie. Eddie jumped up into the helm and gently put The Brawler in reverse. He inched away from the dock out of the channel then hammered the diesels down and out towards The Everglades.
Joe went back to Irena's boat, leaned around the cabin and said, "At least let me buy you dinner or something," still trying to hand her some cash.
"OK." She surrendered. "I know a great place to get a fried grouper sandwich. I gotta go diving though. I'll be back later and swing by around 4."
On her last dive of the day, Irena realized how terrified of drowning Joe had been. She knew what that feeling was like as she was no stranger to life and death situations on the water. Joe was shaking so bad she thought he was going to have a heart attack.
It never ceased to amaze her how fast a good day on the water could turn into maybe your last day on the water. She had days like that. Everyone does who lives on the water. How much you learn each time things go wrong is sometimes the only difference between life and death.
Realizing Joe really didn't have any fun on the water that day, she took a freshwater shower on the boat. She combed out her hair and changed into dry cut-off jean shorts and a blue tank top from The Dive Shop in Marathon. She had live wells on the boat. She could keep all the invertebrates she'd collected alive for as long as needed, so she didn't have to go back to Conch Key first.
She stowed away all loose dive gear then flipped the key and headed the boat back towards the islands. She squared up on the Long Key Bridges and sailed through easily on the following sea of the incoming tide. She took a hard turn to starboard at full speed then throttled down nearing Long Key Hotel.
Approaching the dock, she saw Joe sitting in the sun on the deck outside his room. He looked much better now. His color had come back to his face. He was ready to go and dressed in brown cargo shorts, a blue polo shirt, and Kino leather sandals.
Irena came alongside the dock and said, "Come on. Jump in. Let's run up to Islamorada and get a grouper sandwich."
Without any hesitation or fear, Joe shoved his feet into his sandals, grabbed his wallet and sunglasses, and stepped down into the boat.
"Where did you get the Kino's? Did you go down to Key West?" Irena asked.
"No. A friend of mine bought them for me the last time he was here on a fishing trip." Joe said with surprise because she noticed the Cuban made shoes.
As the sun began to melt into the Florida Bay, the calm water was bathed in a neon orange glow.
Irena looked at Joe next to her holding onto the chrome rail and said, "Let's just hope I don't run aground on a sand bar coming back after dark or we're sleeping on the boat."
With a laugh and a wink of his eye, Joe replied, "I'll take that bet."
As the sky burst into November deep crimson and blazing orange beams of light, Irena and Joe sat on the dock at The Islamorada Fish Company gazing into the sunset. With a full table of fried grouper, stone crab claws, fried shrimp, and frozen margaritas, they ate the seafood feast eagerly and quietly. By the wide beaming smile on Joe's tartar sauce covered face, Irena thought maybe this was the best fish sandwich Joe ever had. He was just happy. Just happy to be alive.
Restaurant guests ran down the dock as the lights came on in the water along the dock. Kids were laughing and throwing table scraps to the tarpon and nurse sharks under the dock, the fish begging for food and attention. Every now and then, a tarpon would slap their tail on the water and all the kids would scream.
From the Tiki hut, a reggae band started to play. Guests jumped up to dance away the day casting long, gentle shadows across the waterfront. Out on the water, the channel markers came to life in red and green lights.
Joe ordered another round of margarita's and two slices of Key Lime Pie. Irena just watched him devour enough food for three people, but he was still hungry.
"I can take you to where you can catch some big grouper tomorrow if you want. I know where they live. I can go diving while you fish. I guarantee you'll catch at the very least a twenty pounder." Irena volunteered.
"You don't have to do that! The hotel is giving me another boat. I can go there without bothering you!" Joe surmised.
"Really, Joe. It's no bother. To get out to the reef where the big fish are, a small boat isn't wise or safe. Just throw your fishing gear on my boat and before 10 am, you'll have at least one grouper in the boat." Irena promised.
"Ok then. I'm in! But you're going to have to let me pay you! I wouldn't feel right about you doing all this stuff for me without letting me do something in return." Joe demanded.
"Hmmm, well no. You're buying dinner tonight and that's enough." Irena bargained.
"Ok it's a deal. Tomorrow, we fish on your boat. I'll fish while you dive and that way, we can keep and eye out for each other." He smiled with a mustache full of key lime pie.
