Big Pine Key was reached at about Noon. As they turned the corner toward Bill and Marcy’s road they saw Bill waving at them and a man was standing next to him. Saw a little key deer on the side of the road just ahead. Bill welcomed them and introductions were performed. Larry visited for a while then headed home.
As soon as the unpacking was completed Bill felt the need to take them over to another friend's place. It was a short walk. Soon Bill, Wesley and Junior were all over at Dennis’s house. He was polishing on some granite to make a base for a stainless steel work of art to sit on. They got to talking about what it would take to make the Holly Lynne, Dennis’s lobster fishing boat, sea worthy and Coast Guard approved again. After much talking, discussing, debating, a little arguing, they decided it would be worth it. The yellow painted styrofoam lobster trap markers were swaying gently on their black ropes which they were tied on the Gumbo Limbo tree limbs with, all over his backyard. They worked for three days. At the end of the third day it was checked out and declared ready. The engine purred and the bilge pumps were strong. The decks were swabbed down and all lights and electronics were working well. Fuel was hauled in, in 55 gallon plastic barrels. Dennis emphatically stated he did not want to run out of fuel, food, water or lights. Enough food was taken on board for two weeks, water for four, lots of batteries of all sizes needed for anything on board the vessel were stored in a plastic dry box on board. The last thing Dennis put on board was an old ten-gauge shotgun he said was fore sharks. He admitted he had never had to use it.
Marcy and Amy waved goodbye to them as the Holly Lynne slipped away from its moorings for the first time in five years. Alabama Larry waved farewell to them from his second-floor porch and laughed at the thought and sight of that newly formed crew off to catch lobsters on the Holly Lynne with Captain Dennis. Deep down inside, where it would never show, he wished he were going along too. Those butcher cut rib eyes looked good that Wesley and Junior had brought down from Arkansas in ice-cold coolers. It was a slow and sometimes-tight squeeze out through the canal to the backwater bay witch was named on maps as, Spanish Harbor. As they cleared the No Wake Zone, Dennis picked up the speed a little but not nearly as much as Zack and Bill speed up there in the” Two Nickels” and “Tight Schedule”. The long wide black boat plowed through the water smoothly. Dennis seemed to already have his old sea rhythm down. He warned however that as they went out front it was supposed to be rough today.
As they cross under the bridge it did get a little rougher but nothing extreme.
The sun was up but still behind some low laying clouds in the eastern sky. An hour passed and land was nowhere in sight.
Being out on the high seas made Junior remember the book he had brought down with him to read. He dug it out of his watertight cloths box and started reading the old book titled, “Sea of Gold”. He was glad he had brought it down from Arkansas. It was about the Florida Keys from Key Largo to Key West. About small islands or keys un-thought of by most and visited by fewer still. Some were described as having plant life on them. Some were barren while others were submerged by only a few inches or feet of salt water.
One such submerged island was described as only covered by two inches in calm waters. It was four acres in an oblong shape, longer sides facing the South, Southeast and North, Northwest. It was almost perfectly placed in the middle of a triangle formed by three mangrove-covered islands. The northern most one was rather large.
It spoke of how legend has it that a Spanish sailor had dropped bottles filled with sand, hiding gold shavings in them on to that small submerged island called Snow Top. Jr. wondered if Dennis could find Snow Top.
It wasn't doubloons but it was gold. Even the bottles would be a treasure because of their age. Dennis was a collector of old bottles found in the ocean and gulf. They went as far out as they needed to and started dropping off their lobster traps. Their yellow marker buoys looked good out there bobbing along the ocean's surface. Lobster, fresh lobster for supper perhaps or at least for tomorrow's noon dinner or supper was his desire.
CONTINUED TO BLOG THREE-(3) BOTTLES
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