Fallen Out: Jesse McDermitt Series, The Beginning (12 page)

The following morning, I was up early and took a thermos of coffee up to the bridge to watch the sunrise. The early morning sounds of the marina are a great way to start the day. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky as the sun began to rise over the mangroves that lined the east side of the harbor. Gulls wheeled and dove on baitfish and a slight breeze caused sailboats to move and their rigging to clank against the aluminum masts. Even the occasional car horn on US-1 filtered through the trees seemed tranquil.

I reflected back on the
nearly eighteen months since I left the structured military life and joined this group of island dwellers and misfits. While it was a relaxing lifestyle, I’d only felt completely in my element during the hurricane when bad people threatened. I’d have to work on that, learn to relax a little more. But, like I said, old habits die hard. I sometimes catch myself evaluating a simple parking lot for possible threats, choke points, and other hidden dangers that are simply not there.

“Figured you’d be up,” a familiar voice called, interrupting my thoughts.

I looked down at the pier at Russ and said, “Come aboard,” as I climbed down the ladder to the cockpit.

“Wanted to see your boat. Got any more of that lifer juice?”

“Come inside,” I replied, opening the hatch to the salon.

He let out a low whistle when he stepped up into the salon and looked around. “This is a long way from the
squad bay on Oki.”

I poured him a mug of coffee in the galley as he looked around. “
What’s she got for power?”

I grinned and said, “I bought her at a Coast Guard auction. She was seized from drug runners. Just below us are two 1015 horse Cats, that’ll push her to about 45 knots.”

After giving him the nickel tour, we went up to the bridge and relaxed, while talking about old times and treasure hunting. Since neither of us had eaten breakfast we walked over to
Dockside
for an early breakfast.

“We going out in the Rampage,” he asked after breakfast.

“Yeah, but if you don’t have anything to do this morning, I thought you might like to run out to the back country in the skiff. I own an island up in the Contents.”

“You own an island? Why?”

“You’ll like it. I plan to build a house on it one day. Great fishing and a natural deep-water channel just a few yards away that’s loaded with stone crab.”

“Lead on, brother,” he said as he stood up.

After grabbing his snorkeling equipment from his pickup, we took the Maverick and headed north. We anchored in Harbor Channel and free dove for stone crab the rest of the morning. Russ found a large cluster of chitons, a segmented mollusk that attaches to rock and eats algae. He pried about a dozen of the two-inch long animals from the rock and put them in his bag. We each caught a lobster and I speared two yellowtail snapper.

Once we got back aboard the skiff, I asked about the chitons. I knew people in the Philippines considered them a delicacy, but had never tried one.

“They taste a little like oyster,” Russ said. “Great in stews, or grilled on the shell.”

“I have a small grill on the island,” I said. “
Let’s have some lunch and I’ll show you around.”

I took the Maverick up the shallow channel I dug
, pulled up under the mangroves, tied the skiff off, and went ashore. The grill was right where I’d left it. We put some dried driftwood in it and started a fire. While I cleaned the fish and lobster, Russ explored the island, which didn’t take very long.

I had the fish and lobster on the grill when he got back
. “Watch this,” he said and placed the chitons around the lobster tails upside down. They slowly rolled themselves into balls when they were exposed to the heat. After a few minutes they unrolled again, the body having cooked in its own juices.

Using
banana leaves for plates, from one of the many trees on the island, we sat on the trunk of a large lignum vitae tree that had fallen years ago. We were on the west side of the island, overlooking the sand bar and ate with our fingers. There’s nothing that compares to eating fresh seafood, straight from the sea.

“Where do you plan to build this house of yours?” Russ asked.

“Right above where the skiff is. On stilts.”

He looked around the island as we finished our lunch and said, “Yeah, I can see it. I’d like to do something like this myself one
of these days.”

We got back
to Marathon about an hour later, stuffed and feeling good. Whenever Russ and I would get together, we always enjoyed one another’s company. When we first met in Okinawa, I was a lowly Lance Corporal and Russ was my Platoon Sergeant. In training, he was all business and rode us hard. But after hours, we’d talk about fishing and diving. Originally from Philadelphia, he’d visited south Florida in the late seventies and fell in love with it. When Rusty transferred in, Russ instantly befriended him, also. He pumped us for every bit of information about both the Keys and the southwest coast, where I was from.

In the
summer of ’82, he went back to Camp Lejeune, but we kept in touch. I wound up there a few months later and we took leave together to go diving. We dove near my home the first few days then he suggested we try the east coast. Beach diving in Fort Pierce for lobster, we found treasure, completely by accident. I’d pulled a large rock out of the way to get at a lobster under a ledge. While I was after the lobster, Russ studied the rock. It turned out to be two hundred fifty-six silver bars, worth about a hundred grand. Russ was hooked and even though he’d just been promoted to Staff Sergeant, left the Marine Corps when his enlistment was up the next spring. He’d been chasing treasure ever since.

“Have you dived Conrad recently,” Russ asked.

“A few times. Since I moved down here, I found out it wasn’t some unknown new reef we’d just stumbled on. Not many people know about it, outside of the locals, though. It’s the wreck site of a British ship the Adelaide Baker.”

The mere mention of a ship wreck riveted his attention. I continued, “She went down in
1889, carrying lumber up to Savannah. She struck the edge of Coffin’s Patch and spilled most of her granite ballast. Salvagers rescued the crew and later salvaged most of the lumber.”

“No treasure, huh?”

“No, unless you count all those lobster.”

At 1500, I started the engines and we cast off. It didn’t take long to reach the reef and the day couldn’t be better, not a cloud in sight. At only twenty or twenty-five feet, we’d have an hour of bottom time
and being a Saturday evening, we had the whole reef to ourselves. Once we were anchored on the south side of the reef, I ran up the red and white dive flag. We donned on our scuba gear, and slipped into the water.

Reaching the reef, we split up and went around it in opposite directions. While most
recreational divers would think this to be a bad idea, Russ and I were both former Recon divers and had dived hundreds, maybe thousands of solo dives in dark and murky water. Here, the water was gin clear and the sun was shining.

Conrad is a really beautiful reef, with lots of tropical fish, coral, and sea fans. While looking for the telltale lobster antennae poking out of cracks and crevices, I enjoyed the reef’s beauty. Within minutes, though, I became wrapped up in the hunt, spotting several lobster wedged into a single hole. I used a tickle stick to coax each one out, one at a time. Two were obviously too small, but a third one was equally obvious to be of legal size. And then some. Into the bag he went and I continued around the edge of the reef, looking for more.

Before long, I realized I was going to catch my limit easily and released a few of the smaller legal sized ones. Within forty minutes, I met up with Russ on the far side of the reef, with four really big lobster in my bag. Russ was grinning around his second stage as he approached. He held up his hand with four fingers extended, then held both hands two feet apart, telling me he’d caught four big ones, also.

Ten minutes later, back on the boat, we emptied our bags into a fish box in the deck
that I’d already filled with sea water. There was no need to measure a single one, they were all monsters. We high fived each other, then hooked the tanks up to be refilled, as the sun started to slip toward the western horizon.

While they filled, we climbed up to the bridge with a bowl of sliced fruit
, sandwiches, and a half dozen bottles of water. We’d no sooner sat down when I saw a boat heading toward us. A moment later, I recognized it as a Marine Patrol boat.

“You have your fishing license and lobster stamp handy?” I asked. “We’re gonna have company in a few minutes.”

“Down below in my go bag,” he replied.

We climbed down to the cockpit and as Russ went inside
, I retrieved my wallet from a stash spot inside the engine room hatch. The Marine Patrol boat pulled up alongside and the officer on board looked my boat over, then reached to tie off to the stern port cleat. I put my hand on the cleat and said, “You need to ask first.”

“Excuse me?” the officer said.

“It’s common courtesy to ask, before tying off.”

“It might be courtesy,” he said. “But it’s not the law.”

“You’re a state law enforcement officer, not federal. While the Coast Guard can board without permission, you need probable cause.”

“This is a fishing boat, Captain. That’s probable cause.”

Russ came out of the cabin just then and said, “No officer, it’s not. While it may resemble a fishing boat, do you see any fishing tackle, any rods, any fish guts, or blood? Any boat can be used for any purpose. The Captain is only asking that you use professional courtesy.”

The officer looked from Russ back to me and finally said, “May I come aboard.”

“Yes, you may,” I responded removing my hand from the cleat. “See, that wasn’t so hard.”

He tied off quickly and stepped over. “I need to see your identification and boat….”

I cut him off. “All right here,” I said, handing him my driver’s license, Captain’s papers, registration, and fishing license, with lobster stamp. Russ handed his own over, also.

“Where are you out of?” he asked.

“Boot Key Harbor,” I replied.

“I haven’t seen you around before. How long have you been here? And if you’re not a fishing boat, why are you handing me a fishing license?”

“I’ve been here a year and a half and run charters out of Boot Key Harbor, docked at
Dockside
. Today, we’re a pleasure boat, just two buddies catching lobster.” With that, Russ opened the fish box, showing him the eight huge lobster we caught.

“You said you weren’t fishing.” The officer said to Russ.

“No, I asked if you saw anything that would indicate we were engaged in fishing, which would give you probable cause to board without consent.” Russ was enjoying this as much as I was.

The officer realized we knew the regulations as well as anyone
and it was unlikely he’d find anything to cite us for. He glanced at the lobster in the fish box and handed our papers back. “Being a smart ass isn’t always a good idea,” he said. “But, since I’m in a good mood, I’ll just leave you gentlemen be.”

With that, he stepped back across to his own boat, untied it and started the engines. As he backed away, Russ and I both saluted him with our left hands and he returned the salute
with his right, oblivious to the insult, which caused as to laugh as he roared away.

We climbed back up to the bridge and relaxed with another bottle of water, waiting for the tanks to fill, and watching the sun set slowly into the sea.
As it neared the horizon and the sky darkened, the sun seemed to dim and flatten out on the bottom and the sky to the west turned to a pale orange.

I turned on the anchor light, cockpit lights, and the transom lights, before we reentered the water.
We agreed before submerging that since we were only four short of our limit, we’d measure and keep all the legal ones we caught then release all but the four largest when we meet up on the other side.

Submerging at the stern, the bottom was illuminated by the powerful lights just below the waterline on the transom. We finned toward the reef, turning on our underwater flashlights then split up again when we got to the edge of the reef. As I finned slowly around the left side, I moved my light up and down the
reef. Most of the colorful tropical were gone, nestled into little crooks and crannies for the night. The night creatures were out now. Soldierfish, squirrelfish, crabs, and shrimp of all kinds. I noticed a queen parrotfish, fully wrapped in its mucus cocoon. Within minutes, I caught the first bug and as I moved around the reef I caught seven more before meeting up with Russ on the other side.

As we settled onto the bottom, he held up three fingers on one hand above 5 fingers on his other. Instantly, I knew what he meant, he had three lobster over five inches carapace length. I replied with two fingers over five fingers. That meant that everything in both bags under five inches could be released. We each started pulling bugs out of our bags measuring them and either releasing them, or putting them back in. We released six that although they were legal, were smaller than everything else we had.