By Capt. Jim Kalvin
The genesis of this column was to share a few true stories from our Southwest Florida waterfront community from days gone by. Hopefully – from time to time – a new arrival will read something that will ignite a spark of interest, and set him / her off on a new adventure.
I always looked at a boat – any boat – as a vehicle to take you somewhere special and enable you to do things that you can’t do in your living room or on your pool deck. I never did believe in having a television aboard a boat and I really don’t understand the need for the galactic digitized stereo systems sported on some of the “party” boats that you run into these days. Alas, the boats have changed, the waterfront has changed, and the boat owners themselves have changed! For example, a lot of folks afloat may not even know that there is such a thing as a VHF radio aboard their vessel. And if they do know about it, most likely don’t know how to properly use it. Why should they? We have Sea Tow and Boat U.S., full screen GPS charts, and cellular phones. Together, those things make the VHF radio seemingly obsolete. If you have trouble, just call your sea service company of choice and give them your location. That is, of course, assuming you don’t go out of cell tower range. Out there, …..it’s a different ballgame……
I’ve seen and known thousands of boaters, as they’ve come through my various service offices over the decades. They’ve ranged from the novice to the experienced, the humble beginner to the know-it-all, and the friendly to the ….well, I’ve seen my share of grumps and grouches over the years! Actually, I’ve dealt with a few real “snakes” as well. But they’re few and far between and they generally don’t hang around the boating community very long.
One character from my past is the late Jack Rowe. I will always remember him fondly as a true Mariner. A self-made professional, Jack could have had any boat that he wanted. With all of the big fancy sport-fishers of his day available to him, Jack was the Skipper of “Miss Francis” – a wooden-hulled former commercial trawler that was adapted to do what Jack wanted to do. And that would be to ply the waters of Southwest Florida from Naples to Flamingo, the Keys to the Dry Tortugas.
Jack liked to “get away” from the crowds and the noise and just “go” (a trait that I shared whole-heartedly)! When I met him, he was in his 70’s, and the biggest problem he and I had was that I was managing Turner Marine’s service office and boat owners were no longer allowed to work on their own vessels, due to the dang new-fangled insurance regulations. He had always performed his own work and only brought the boat into the yard for things he couldn’t do while the boat was in the water.
One particular day, he came into my office and gave me a “Float Plan”. For new boaters, this is a written itinerary of where you intend to go, for how long, and when you expect to be back. It’s to be left with someone who would know whether or not you had returned when expected. As I was at the marina every day, I would know whether or not Jack came back on time. This particular Float Plan had “Miss Francis” heading from Naples to the Dry Tortugas. Jack intended to spend a couple of days fishing, by himself, and return on the 4th day. Well, the 4th day came and went and Jack hadn’t returned. I called the Coast Guard in Ft. Myers Beach that same afternoon and reported him over-due. I got a call back in a few hours and he had been located – in the Dry Tortugas. He had experienced engine troubles, but the weather was fair, he was safe, and he refused any assistance at the time he was contacted via his VHF radio.
Three days later, “Miss Francis” was in her slip when I got to the marina. The weather was deteriorating, and she was salty and loosely tied in her slip. I walked down and saw that Jack was still aboard. He had just woken up and he was a mess! He was wearing an old tank top that was covered with grease and grime. His arms were lacerated from his biceps to his finger-tips, and he had a significant cut on his forehead. I instinctively jumped down to the boat to see if he needed help, and he looked at me like I was nuts! “I’m just a little tired and wore-out, Jim……I ain’t dead for cryin’ out loud!” he said. I asked him what had happened, and he started to tell the story.
“Well, first off – I left the float plan in the right hands…..I was going to call the Coast Guard and report my situation just as they called looking for me. That made me feel good – and I thank you.” I was beaming with pride……
“What happened was, I started losing my transmission as I approached the bank, but I was closer to the Fort than I was to anyplace else, so I kept going to Ft. Jefferson. I had to wait for the engine to cool down before I could trouble-shoot it, but I wound up having to remove the gear box – which wasn’t easy. I ruined my table leg using it as a pry-bar – I’ll need for your carpenter to make me a new one, please. So I took the transmission out and got a ride to Key West with a commercial fisherman. A fella there rebuilt it for me and 2 days later I caught a ride back out with another fisherman. Then, I had to put it back in – which took me two days.” I was speechless! He chuckled at my incredulity and kept on going. “Well, now that I was up and running again, I decided I didn’t come this far just to turn around and go back, so I stayed another day to do some fishing. Would’a stayed longer, but this darned weather was moving in, so I had to come home.” With this, he asked me to secure the boat in the slip and said, “I think I’ll go home now. I need to rest.”
He thanked me again for my diligence and off he went. We enjoyed a wonderful working relationship for the balance of my time at the marina. He will always be remembered fondly by yours truly. He was an old-school Mariner who never had a bad word for anyone or anything – he was the original article, and a man that I was proud to have known!
Captain Jim Kalvin is a Florida Native, a licensed 100 Ton U.S. Coast Guard Master, and a local Marine Contractor. He is available for private guide services aboard your vessel, vessel ops coaching, or vessel deliveries to all points on the Eastern Seaboard, the Bahamas, or the Gulf Coast. He can be reached at 239-2806054, or via email at james.kalvin61@gmail.com.