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The following is a true story about a very short period in my life which, ultimately, changed the whole direction of my life. Until now, only my closest friends know this story. The time has come to tell it to the world. Please read it and, hopefully, learn.
In the early "80's, I gave up my profession as a music teacher and turned in a whole new direction. I wanted to be a "professional" sailor. I started a small sailing charter business in Ft. Myers, Florida. Within two years, after much struggling, I had a fleet of three sailing yachts, rangeing in size from 30' to 45" under my management. I was taking people out for day sails and promoting long term charters to Key West and the intercoastal waters to the north.
I was just barely scraping out a living when, one day, a man (I'll call him "Vito") came down to the docks and wanted to have a talk with me. It turned out that Vito was part of a big organization from the north that was running a large scale pot smuggling operation out of Jamaica and needed another boat and crew to expand his fleet.
Here was my big chance to make an amount of money that people dream about when they think of winning the lottery. Vito would pay for the boat and I would get paid a huge amount of money for bringing back a very large amount of pot. If I had five sucessful trips, the boat would be mine and I could retire. The thought of high adventure and the large amounts of cash were just too much to turn down.
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The boat I picked for the job was a Bombay '45, built in St.Petersburg for the charter industry in the '70's. She was built like a tank and displaced over 27 tons. For three months, Vito had workers on board completely transforming the cabins below. The bulkheads (walls) were moved inward by eight inches all the way around, creating a space to hide the future "cargo". Secret openings were created to get access to this space. One of the water tanks was replaced with a "dummy" tank that would also hold the "cargo". All the latest electronics were added for navigation and communication. Finally, a new paint job and canvas were added transforming an old , tired looking boat into a shinning "new" boat. Cost of the transformation? $35,000+. The next step was to get together a crew of two women and another guy besides myself, making the crew appear to look like two couples on a big sailing vacation. By mid November of '85, all was ready for the adventure to begin. |
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