I’m getting too old for this shit.

Don’t get me wrong.  I love the ocean, diving, treasure hunting, getting rich and all that.  But when you’re putting your on third tank in one day and dropping over the side to suck the bottom of the ocean up with the likelihood that all you are going to go home with tonight is wrinkled fingers, it can get you down.

But there I was, six years into a project that could last twenty, which means somebody else will probably find the mother lode after I have scoured every other inch of the sea floor.

But that’s the way it works.

Holding my hand over my mask, I flipped backwards off the dive platform of the salvage ship LaBrisa, a converted World War II era tugboat.  LaBrisa isn’t a perfect dive platform, but it ran (most of the time) didn’t leak (much) and it was bought for pennies on the dollar out of an auction in Tarpon Springs, so that made it a perfect dive platform for Harry Sykas’ dive operation.  We’ve been looking for a wreck, thought to be one of the ships belonging to the Spanish plate fleet that was caught in a hurricane in 1733, that sunk or damaging most of the fleet.  While the famous wrecks found by Mel Fisher, like the Nuestra Senora de la Atocha and the Santa Margarita that sunk in 1622, created huge publicity and fabulous wealth to Fisher and Treasure Salvors, Inc, those 1622 ships had not been successfully salvaged just after sinking.  The Galleons of the 1733 fleet were quickly salvaged within months or a few years after the hurricane.   The 1733 ships had sunk in shallower waters, their location carefully logged, and most of the treasure removed by the Spaniards quickly within a few months or years.  Without dive gear back in those days, the common method was to burn the wreck to the waterline, and then they would use grappling hooks to pull up lower deck boards, and then send down slaves to get the gold and silver below. But some of that treasure had been missed by the Spaniards, and was then rather quietly gathered in the 60’s by local treasure hunters in the keys. 

Records say that all of that fleet sunk in the reefs between Marathon and Key Largo, or even farther north.  It was strange that the wreck we were working was well west, at least sixty miles, of the next nearest documented 1733 galleon.  It was likely this site was not one of the main merchant ships, and the treasure was probably not a giant treasure, but still had huge profit potential to Harry’s operation.  Thus far we had only found a few small congregates of silver “Pieces of Eight”, six emeralds and a small gold cross with an inscription on the back that suggested it was worn by a clergyman.  Six years into the search and Harry was deep in debt.  Not from a global standpoint.  His Greek family operation in Tarpon Springs was flush, but this was his personal baby, and he had to fund it out of his own pocket.  We weren’t even positive there was a wreck down here, except that Harry’s grandfather hooked a gold chain when he was sponging off Boca Grande around the turn of the century.  It funded his grandfathers sponging company up in Tarpon Springs, and left his offspring with a fable that Harry had always wanted to explore.  We have found a few items, just enough to keep us going, but hardly enough to keep us fed.

I wasn’t getting too rich, or any younger, for that matter, either.

We were hunting in about fifty feet of water.  Instead of the “Mailbox” that some treasure hunting ships use, we were using an airlift that sucked up the bottom and blew it onto a big net at the back of the ship.  Mailboxes consist of huge curved tubes that hang off the back of a ship and, when dropped down in the water behind the running twin screws literally blew the sand out of the way and exposed the sea bottom and possible sunken treasure.  Airlifts are a little less efficient, more work but also less damaging to the environment.  They merely mess up the environment instead of destroying it like the mailboxes do.  Besides, below fifty feet, Mailboxes don’t work that well.  That being said, I don’t recall dumping 30,000 gallons of sewage every hour into the ocean like most cities do, so my conscience wasn’t too clouded by guilt today.

The airlift is a multi person project.  One guy hangs at the bottom sucking up sand, rocks, and the occasional moray eel, while a crew on top sorts the junk, sifting the sand, throwing big stuff back overboard (hopefully not on my head) and looking for any silver, gold or jewelry that goes up the chute.  The guy at the bottom, namely yours truly for this dive, looks for things that get exposed, silver bars, encrusted coins, or other artifacts.  Running the operation topside today was Mike “Doobie” Hunt, not my favorite person in the world, but more or less marginally reliable.  Sometime.  Some days he works the lift and sometimes I do and he’s on the bottom.  Both jobs sound glamorous and aren’t.

Pay was enough to get by, but not great, and it was hard, hard work.  Six years of work on the site had yielded hardly enough treasure to fill a five-gallon bucket.  Things had better start happening pretty soon or the checks would start bouncing.   I’ve been through this before and I know now that a single dad with two teen-age kids couldn’t afford missing a paycheck.   The tide-enhanced current was ripping through the site, and even though it was good that the water was being constantly cleared of sand, I had to hold on to the airlift nozzle dear life just to keep from being washed away with the debris.  Suddenly, I saw a glint on the bottom.  I shut off the airlift, dropped it and dove for the shiny spot.  Digging my hand into the settling sand where I last saw the glimmer, I was rewarded with a thirty inch length of bright gold chain.  Silver turns black and encrusted in salt water, but gold, even though it can get encrusted a little with sea life, always shines forever.   Holding the chain up in admiration, I forgot the current, and was whipped ass over teakettle out of the hole and away.   In just seconds I was fifty feet away from LaBrisa and, with no chance of making it back, surfaced and started yelling at the boat.  “Come get me” I yelled.   The noise of the airlift drowned out my voice and Doobie was plugged into his iPod as normal and, yes, I saw a little puff of smoke that was more than likely a cigarette without a label or a filter, if you get my drift.  Doobie and the rest of the crew was not that alarmed that I had shut off the sucker, assuming I was checking something out.  Eventually, they would decide something was amiss and come looking; I figured I would be halfway to Fort Jefferson in the Dry Tortugas before then.  I looked around and saw that the nearest land was the south shore of Boca Grande Key, just about 400 yards away. 

With the current helping me, I reached walkable bottom in 45 minutes.    I pulled my tank, weights and fins off and, happy that I always wore walking booties inside my flippers, worked my way to shoreline to wait.  I figured at this point the day was pretty well a bust.   Slogging through knee deep water and dragging all my gear, I tripped over something, stubbed my toe, and did a rather unceremonious faceplant in shallow water.  Looking at what I fell over, from about three inches away, I came face to face with the unmistakable outline of an old cannon.  Cannons ain’t pieces of eight, but have huge value and can really help date and identify a wreck.   Maybe this day wasn’t going to be a bust after all.   I Set my gear on the shore and gave the big gun a cursory inspection.  Crusted with sea-life and partially buried, you could tell it was likely Spanish, probably an eight pounder, (meaning the cannonballs it shot weighted eight pounds) and very old.  I was puzzled how a four hundred pound iron cannon could wind up in just a few feet of water, and if it has been here since 1733, global warming meant it was likely ten feet or more above the waterline when it first came to rest here.  Cannons don’t float – Somebody had to put it here, or part of a wreck washed up on shore.   It made sense to move LaBrisa over to see if we could get it aboard.  That hulk needed almost nine feet underneath her, and even with a high tide, it’s likely we couldn’t get any closer than about sixty feet.

Back to more pressing matters, I looked out to the boat to see if anyone had decided to look for me. It was on the outside edge of my fifty year old vision, but it appeared I had finally come up missing.  I waved my hands over my head and if someone had the intelligence to think I might still be alive, a pair of binoculars would have spotted me easily.  I finally gave up and started thinking about spending the night.

 I’m sure they would eventually find me or my buzzard-picked body.

Depending on whether or not you’re one of those “Half Full or Half Empty” people Boca Grande is either one of the most beautiful places on the planet, or the loneliest, most God-forsaken two acres you have ever seen. The highest spot on the key is about six feet, and other than some scrub, small mangroves and one lone palm tree, it’s devoid of any food or water. Most of the island is a shallow marshy lagoon, good only for nesting water birds, and anything resembling a tropical system will submerge it.  That being said, you can stroll a beach that hasn’t seen footprints for weeks or months, sit in the sand and not see or hear anything manmade, and see more stars filing a non-light polluted sky at night than you can ever imagine.  I had parked on this very beach often in my careless youth, usually doing things my parents would not approve of, but the beach always survived, as did I. 

 As light began to fade, I settled down for the evening.  No food, no water, no way to make a fire. I know you have seen the survival guy rub two sticks together or get some matches out of his handy dandy survival kit, along with a hook, fishing line, compass, sat-phone, and plasma TV.  I was working twenty feel below a floating hotel and didn’t need any other gear. Perhaps I could tell myself some bad jokes and rub two dry clichés together.  Oh well. It was a warm evening.  I kicked back, used my tank for a pillow and looked at the heavens.  In the middle of nowhere, without light or air pollution, you could see maybe ten times as many stars as are visible in the city.  Late summer constellations, Andromeda, Pegasus, Pisces and others shone so brightly you could read a book, if I had a book.  My friends from my childhood, winter images of Orion, Perseus and Taurus, with the fabled Pleiades in its midst, would not be around for a few more months. I finally drifted off to sleep, silently bitching at myself for not following rule number one, to never, never dive without a buddy.

My dreams, like always, were wild, vivid, manic and in color.  A storm was raging in the middle of the night, and a small ship was tossing in the waves like a tennis shoe in a dryer.  I watched main mast snap off, and crew members were being washed overboard.  The Captain was standing on the forecastle, defying the storm and wearing a large gold chain around his neck.  He was loading gold bars and jewelry into a wooden chest.  Then, he waived his hands over his head and the wind stopped, calming the wild seas in an instant.  Clouds parted and a million stars shown through, but these stars weren’t twinkling, they were all falling into the ocean in a brilliant shower of sparks.  More and more fell, closer and closer, and I was afraid one would hit me. The sparks were piercing my eyelids, and I woke with a startled yell, came up to a sitting position, and then back down on the scuba tank with a clang, knocking myself silly.  It took me a second to remember where I was and get the stars out of my head and then  saw that it wasn’t all a dream.  The sky was ablaze with shooting stars.  One or two ever few seconds, leaving vivid colored contrails.  “That’s right!” I exclaimed to no one. “It’s mid-August.  The Perseid Meteor Shower.  Just like the rest of the night sky when you’re out the middle of nowhere, I could see probably five times as many meteorites as the normal eye could pick up.  Such brilliant and amazing displays made the mind invent sounds. I could swear there was a hissing sound every time one of these specs of dust emerged into the atmosphere from the Persus constellation.  I’ve read other people talk about this phenomenon and I could tell how real it felt.   I lay back down and watched the free show for another hour, and drifted back again to, for once, a dreamless sleep.

I woke to a false dawn and the sound of a zodiac approaching the beach, the summer keys waters phosphoring the bow wave with a dull green glow. The boat slowed as it approached the shore. Theodore “Tack” Morgan was coming right toward me. Tack’s my friend Bo Morgan’s son.  Tack’s in his late 30’s and as much of a fish as my son Broderick.  He grew up on treasure ships, and was aboard with his dad when they found one of the greatest treasures of all time.  Currently he was co-running this dive operation. 

“You decide to camp out last night?” Tack called out.  “It might have been nice if you had filed a flight plan”

“Ah, you know, just needed a little ‘Me’ time.  What made you look over here?”

“Dimwit radioed that you had drowned and they couldn’t find the body so I came out last night in the fast boat, and happened to bring my infrared binocs.  I could see you were alive and toasty warm on the shore and didn’t want to wake you up” He tossed me a bottle of Zephyrhills water.

I waded out to Tack, pulled the Zodiac to shore and then showed him what I found.   As soon as it was daylight we went back out to the LaBrisa and after making sure Doobie saw his life flash before his face a few times, I grabbed a camp shovel and jumped back in the Zodiac.  The crew weighed anchor and started to see how close they could get to shore.   Digging under the big gun, we ran the ropes under it and looped it around the winch line from the LaBrisa. The crew fired up the winch, and the cannon began to move from its 250 year old resting spot.   As the big gun moved away from its spot, I caught the unmistakable glint of gold underneath.  I started to reach down, and then, on an impulse, quickly kicked some sand to cover the object.

 It was time to stop being a wage slave and start becoming an entrepreneur.

Back on the mother ship, we pulled the cannon on the deck and sat it on some wooden blocks.  I had completely forgotten the other gold discovery from earlier in the day until Tack popped off with “you gettin together a Mister T starter kit?  Sheepishly I pulled the gold chain over my head and took it below.  We measured, weighed, cataloged and photographed the chain before dropping it in the ships safe.  It was thirty-two inches long, nearly a pound in weight, make that fourteen troy ounces.  The big, crudely made links were designed to be used one at a time for payment.  Possibly hanging around the neck clergyman or rich merchant, the chain had likely hastened the drowning of a man that probably couldn’t swim anyway.  Value in gold, say around fifteen grand, and in historical value say ten times that.  The cannon was worth maybe another five grand.

Everybody gets paid this week.  Everybody gets laid next week.

There was no other way to get the cannon back to port other than to pull anchor and drive the lumbering LaBrisa back.  A fast and nimble tugboat sixty years ago, the twin diesels were tired and the boat was heavy with gear and extra structures that had been built on the back, including a huge shade over the deck that doubled as a second-story bedroom for outdoor nighttime snoozes.  Ten knots was about the best she could do.  That translated into a two hour trip.   I normally commuted back and forth on the shuttle boat but it was called off today as the big boat was coming home.  Time to fill & fuel, stock up on basics and let the mechanics breath a little more life into the tired engines anyway.  I took advantage of the time to call the boss, and let him know of the day’s take.  Harry Sykas was more than pleased to hear about the gold chain. He wasn’t thinking of bigger paychecks.  He would use it to fend off the wolves, and maybe generate enough publicity to lure some more investors. 

“Any word on the research with the cross?”  I asked?  “A little” replied Harry.  “Likely non-documented personal treasure, maybe worn by a monk or a ship’s officer.  Who knows?  All the coins were minted before 1732 so I think we may be right in thinking it an undocumented wreck from the 1733 fleet.  Get that cannon in the truck tonight and send it up to me.  We will see if we can cross reference it too.” 

Spanish Silver “Flotas” or Flotillas carried treasure from the Americas to Spain between 1550 and 1735.   The typical fleet consisted of several types of ships. Heavily armed galleons served as protection for the bulk of the fleet, the heavily loaded merchant ships.  The only difference between the merchants and galleon was the amount of armament carried in one and the amount of treasure in the other.  There was also a fair amount of gold, and semi-precious and precious stones, including Emeralds.  While all the “official” cargo was carefully and meticulously documented, there was a lot of non-documented treasure too, contraband, bribes, all incredible wealth, and all being taken home by individuals.   This undocumented treasure was often some of the items that often brought huge value well beyond their weight in precious metal.  That was the cross that had been brought up before, and likely the gold chain that I had found today.  (And, I would guess, probably whatever I saw that was shiny under that cannon too).  Fifteen million bucks in documented gold and silver on the ship could be possibly doubled with this contraband.  It was a valuable unknown.

Harry promised to get back to me soon.  I was not the leader of the project, just the senior diver and usually served as “straw boss” when the big guy was up at his offices in Tarpon Springs.  Harry couldn’t dive for rubber duckies in a bathtub, but liked to think he knew how to run a business.

As the LaBrisa motored across the channel into the harbor, the right diesel started to overheat, and then quit.  Another water pump broken, and who knows how much downtime until a replacement could be fixed, found or even fabricated.   I changed out of my boat clothes, swimsuit, dive booties, a torn tanktop and fisherman’s hat with a pair of Costas, into my more presentable shoreside attire, a tee shirt with a fish printed on both sides, Khaki shorts, topsiders, a clean fisherman’s hat, and my only piece of jewelry, a four Reale coin from the wreck, surrounded by a custom-made bezel created by my friend Cindy in Colorado, hanging from a thirty inch 18 carat gold chain.  The gold bezel design features three dolphins and a naked mermaid and looks a little flashy, but it’s the only thing I have of true value.

My mode of transportation for the last three years is a 1978 Volkswagen “Thing” Modeled after the Nazi German personnel cards in the 40’s the Thing was so ugly it was cute.  Google one up sometime.  They were simple, cheap and they wouldn’t break down.  In proper pseudo-army/conch cruiser disguise, my Thing was painted in a combination of camouflage and decorated with a lot of rust and air where much of the body and fenders used to be. The passenger side floorboard was made out of a hammered-flat cookie sheet that I found on Mount Trashmore that was pop-riveted to the floor.  The current gearshift knob was a fake shrunken head I got from a voodoo store in New Orleans, The radio didn’t work, the ragtop had rotted away when Jimmy Carter was president and the brakes barely worked when I bought it.  There was a faded “Free the Watergate 5000” bumper sticker on the back bumper. The key was broken off in the ignition so you started it by jamming a stick or a quarter in the ignition switch and turning it hard to the right.  I sometimes used a guitar pick since there was always one in my pocket or slipped into the windshield rubber.   On more than one occasion, a friend, knowing my car was rather security challenged would jump in my car and used it for a grocery run or such.  Most of the time it came back, sometimes I had to go hunting for her.  Nobody ever stole her, as there was little faith in it being able to get more than twenty miles beyond Marathon without self-destructing. But, you know, hey, it was mine, it was paid for and that was good enough for me.  Karen and I had skirted the edge of being an item since the day we met.  Actually it was the second time we met. The first time I saw Karen I was barging into the lobby bar in a little motel on a small island in the Caribbean as the advance party of an American invasion. I was wearing camouflage, combat boots, green/black face paint and holding a Heckler & Koch P11 underwater handgun, cocked and ready.   She was calmly sitting at the bar in a bikini top and some sort of sarong.  Her bare, sandy feet were up on the table and she was trying to flag down a server to order another rum drink. Karen was the only person in the lobby and laughed her ass off at the Rambo act.    You see, she didn't know she needed to be rescued.  The insurrection and subsequent "Invasion" by us rugged types was going on at the other end of the island.  "Are you okay, ma'am?"  I asked.  "No" she replied.  "No, my glass is empty.  And I was really hoping for a ride to a nice restaurant.  Apparently, that is out of the question but I'll still need that drink.”   You could dive in deep and swim around those blue eyes, and I just stood there, looking stupid with no snappy response.  “What’s with the getup?” she asked.  I explained that the Cuban government had decided to help fund a little coup, and we had deployed to put down the insurrection.  “Stay put and don’t go outside till you get the all clear” I told her.  She just swirled the ice in her empty glass with her pinkie, smiled and nodded her compliance.  I took a pad and paper and took down her personal info, then backed out of the bar/lobby looking like I was ready to protect her with my life.  I pocketed in the notepad  for safekeeping but by the time I got home it had been hammered into Kleenex at the bottom of my duffel bag.  But I had already memorized her name, and those eyes.  That was 1983, and it was nearly 20 years later that I ran into her again, right in Key West, sitting at the bar at Schooner Wharf.  I recognized those eyes and instantly remembered her name. “Karen!  You probably don’t remember me but I saved your live once on Grenada”   She took a sip of  her beer , wet her index finger and stuck it in the ash tray, smearing cigarette ash on my face before I could pull away.  “Yes! It is you!”  She said.  “You were a little heavy on the makeup that day”  We laughed and I bought her a few more beers, and we kinda started dating off and on, but she saw right through me. She had me figured out better than I had me figured out, so it never developed but it never diminished.  We parted friendship over a slight scheduling mix-up that got her ticked off and we haven’t spoken since.  Anyway, she’s living with some sailor now and I seem to be married to a Spanish galleon. When Karen owned the car, it was fondly known around town as the BitchBox.  It’s a guy car now, but I like the name so BitchBox she remained. Today, when I got off work, it was parked where I had left it, on the side of the street behind B.O.’s Fishwagon on Caroline Street. As long as the day had been, I decided a grain-based, well chilled reward or two was in order.  B.O.’s is the kind of place locals are drawn to and tourists veer away from, until they get a tip from a local, and then it becomes a must-stop on any Key West trip.  It epitomizes the official term “Hole in the Wall”.  It really doesn’t have much in the form of walls.  Just a small central building that houses the kitchen and bathrooms, then haphazard chairs, tables, barstools and rough board walls to comprise the rest.  An old Chevy pickup is more or less built into the decorations, and various signs, posters, photos and other flotsam and jetsam complete the rather rustic decorations. On a slanted, cramped corner is what passes for a bandstand, and on frequent occasions, you can find any of a number of musicians providing noise to the background noise.  Tonight it was Barry Cuda and the Sharks.  Barry is the certified Key West “Pianimal” He has a fairly large upright piano that he's bolted four big rubber wheels to the bottom.  He rolls it from gig to gig with his stool and tip jar riding on top of the keyboard.  He can play three or four places a day.  Lunch at Sloppy Joes, afternoon at the Hog’s breath, twilight at BO’s and an evening gig at Buzzards.  He’s good enough that I have followed him to all venues on a lazy summer afternoon.  His music is excellent, jazz, blues and old ribald bar songs.  I’ve sat in with him more than once, and it’s always a treat. 

B.O.’s has certifiably the coldest bottled beer on planet earth. They must have a scientist on payroll that can make that refrigerator hover a nano-degree above absolute zero, and there is nothing like the first sip of a beer that cold after a day on the water.  I hated to drink alone and rarely had to, but the hair, what little of it, on the back of my neck stood straight on end when I spotted Karen sitting on one of the rickety park benches in the corner near Barry’s piano.  It was 90 degrees at eight pm / 8PM and I still broke into a cold sweat.  She lifted her bottle, tipped it in my direction and motioned to the unoccupied seat across from her, an overturned ice chest with a cushion.  I went to the counter, bought two cold Bud Longnecks, ordered a grouper sandwich and turned to face a situation which had the potential to be pleasant or potentially homicide.

“Pax?” I suggested, setting one of the Buds in front of her while still standing.

“Bric, I never hold a grudge.  Sit down.  Hell, I’ve almost completely forgotten your no-show at the airport.  You remember though, right? The seven day, all expenses trip to Aruba?”   Seriously Bric, I had almost forgotten until you walked in.  No biggie.  How could I still be mad over something that happened three years, seven months, eleven days and three hours ago?”   She raised the bottle and again motioned for me to sit and I did.  I joined her at the spool stolen from the electric company that was now serving as a table.  But, I stayed out of her reach.  I made a quick mental note that I was still likely within throwing range.  “Those headlights on the BitchBox still exploding?”  She asked sweetly.  “You really need to figure out what makes that happen.  I bet there’s some kind of recall with Volkswagen. You should check it out.”  I had suspected for a long time who was hammering my headlights. The mystery was apparently solved. 

“Sweetie, I’ve tried to explain that a hundred times.  I ……”

“Buddy boy, don’t ‘sweetie’ me and there’s no need to spin another yarn.  I told you, I’m cool, it’s over.  No biggie and I got me a nice strapping real live man now, that knows the way home, cooks, cleans and does dishes.  Hey, good sex and half the utilities were all I ever asked for.  I’m not a hundred percent sure you wouldn’t be  oh-for-two on that kind of arrangement anyway.”  She finished her first beer and then tossed the fresh one down in four swallows, and then Karen pulled her keys out of her purse and stood up.  I couldn’t help but flinch, but she slid around to my side of the table, pulled my hat off and gave me a big kiss on my bald spot.  “You take care of my car Bric.  It’s a classic”  I flashbacked to a scene from Jurassic Park “freeze, don’t move and maybe she won’t know you’re there” I stared at the ground and noticed the attractive, open-toed robin’s egg blue pumps she was wearing, and tried to not show tears as she ground my foot into the floor with her one inch heels.  She walked out the side exit into the dark.  A few seconds later I heard the unmistakable pop and tinkle of another headlight being sent to headlight heaven.

Thank God I always kept a few spare lights in the trunk.  And besides, she’s really wrong.  I'm very good in bed.

I think

After two more beers and my fresh grouper sandwich and I was nurtured, both in body and soul, and the trauma had almost washed away.  Almost.  The crowd grew and shrank over the two hours or so I was there, and at least three “bar dogs” paid a visit to mooch a handout.  Key West has a large supply of these happy canines, identifiable by the bandana that has been tied around their neck, officially signifying they belonged to someone.  In the evening, usually before their master gets home, they make the rounds looking for a handout.  Buddy Owen, AKA B.O. had a supply of hot dogs in the fridge and on more than one occasion I have seen him scold a dog, tell him to go away, get the hell out of here, then throw the dog a dog.  It was mostly an act and both the staff and the dog knew the drill.  Usually the dog would catch the wiener in the air, gulp it down, and then head off toward Schooner Wharf for the next handout. 

Ah, to be a dog.

 I paid my bill, tipped the band and wandered out to my Thing. Happily, it started on demand, taking me home.

 

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