From the Beach Boy Chronicles
The Boat Thief
By Tom Williams Aug 2, 2023 0
During the early 1980s, Marco, Goodland, and Isles of Capri had a secret life. There was probably more smuggling boats running through the offshore and backwaters of the Ten Thousand Islands than anywhere else in Florida. Marijuana was the contraband of the day, and it was coming in from seemingly everywhere. There were pot-hauling cowboys who made routine excursions to just about any island or coastal nation where the law was loose, and corruption was a way of life. An envelope full of cash was a passport and a ticket to ride and to stay out of jail, but when it came to hauling pot into the U.S. and Florida, the law was not loose at all, and every smuggler knew it.
Cuba was also a worry for the contraband cowboys because if a shrimp boat full of bales of marijuana happened to venture too close to Fidel Castro’s imprisoned nation, communist patrol boats would pirate the smugglers, take the boat and the pot, and anyone unlucky enough to be onboard would end up working in the sugarcane fields forever.
Anything was better than harvesting sugarcane from dawn until dusk, the smugglers knew, so the mountains and the coastline of Cuba were fear and loathing incarnate. Another worrisome concern for the saltwater cowboys was the shallow waters and tidal zones of the islands surrounding Marco, Goodland, and the Isles of Capri.
The big shrimp boats were the deep-water workhorses for the southwest Florida smugglers, but the deep-draft trawlers could not pass over the shallow sandbars of the Ten Thousand Island archipelago. This was a similar scenario to when Cuban Rum was an illegal import during prohibition and when the oldest of the contraband cowboys could recall their grandfathers discussing the same shallow-water problems of an earlier era of smuggling.
No one in smuggling or warfare likes the moon. Especially a full moon. If the moon is out, darkness is not dark. The sparkling wake of a speeding smuggler is obvious in the moonlight, as is any other sneaky activity that has ever been the objective of any clandestine operation. However, during the dark of the moon in summer, when the leftovers of thunderstorms are a blanket over the starlight, the timing for smuggling is perfect, except that in total darkness, sandbars are hard to see, especially when the tide is out during a new and very dark moon.
Shoals and tricky tidal zones between the mangroves were indeed the widespread helpers of law enforcement of the decades gone by, but one story of a single clever smuggler and his mishap on a sandbar has even become an urban legend and a local song of the Southwest Florida islands.
The money was too good to pass up, and everybody knew it. Of course, no one spoke about the secret life and the secret boats that were cruising around the islands in the dark, but the word came out because the money was so good.
It was dreadful knowing what might happen if prison became a reality, but the secret life was mostly secret, the chances were fair, and the payday was just like when Grandpa did the same thing with rum and whisky from Cuba and the Bahamas.
Jack was a charter-fishing captain and had been for years. He knew the waters around the islands like the back of his hand, and when the scuttlebutt and the whispered rumors about money that was too good to be true came drifting around the docks, Jack decided he was going to try it. Just once.
It was easy. The ringleader said. “All you have to do is go out and meet the shrimp boat that is waiting offshore. Once you’re there, the boys on the shrimper will load you up. All you have to do is drive back into Goodland and tie up at the dock behind the mangroves. Once there, more boys with the truck will be waiting to unload you. It will be over in no time, and then it's payday!”
Jack figured he had to try it. Just once. The money was too good.
On the evening Jack went out, the sun was down and the tide was running hard. It was a perfect summer night. The gulf was as flat as a swimming pool, and there was plenty of cloud cover over the stars. When Jack looked back at his wake, the white water disappeared after only a few feet.
When he finally saw them, Jack understood at once the boys on the shrimp boat were good. They were working hard when Jack pulled up because there were three other boats already ahead of him. No one was using any lights, but the bales of pot were crossing from the big boat to the smaller ones fast. It was beautiful, Jack decided, because the big shrimper would soon be empty, and a shrimp boat without any contraband was breaking no law.
Jack’s deck was loaded after the last of the other smugglers left, and a brown tarp was soon tied over the bales of weed that were now weighing down the back of his boat. The last thing that came aboard was a six-pack of beer that the shrimp boys said would cool his nerves as he drove back to the waiting dock in Goodland.
The shrimp boat boys were right, and Jack finished the last of the beer before he made the tight turn at Coon Key and headed toward Goodland. It was dark, the tide was out, and just when Jack’s nerves were beginning to believe he was home free, the now very heavy fishing boat plowed onto an oyster bar at the shallowest part of the channel.
When he knew he was stuck high and dry with a stack full of marijuana bales on his family boat and sunrise was only an hour away, Jack jumped into the water and swam toward the twinkling lights of the nearest dock in Goodland. He then ran soaking wet to the nearest payphone and called the county sheriff.
“This is Jack, of Jack’s charter fishing,” he said as he tried to calm his breathing. “I just woke up and went outside to my dock. Someone stole my boat!”
Later that morning Jack’s boat was discovered by local law enforcement and it was full of marijuana. Jack was indeed clever and never ran afoul of the law but well after the statute of limitations passed, Jack and his boat became the stuff of urban legends when a local songwriter wrote the lyrics: Someone stole my boat and it was full of dope.
Tom Williams is a Marco Islander and the author of two books: “Lost and Found” and “Surrounded by Thunder - the Story of Darrell Loan and the Rocket Men.” Both books are available on Kindle and Nook. |
