Sence this Journal is done, I dont know if any one will see this or not and I dont know where else to put this. Any way I wanted to relay just one of many things that happend when I lived in the Flordia Keys.It starts in 1974 when one of my High School girl friends(now BFF),ask me to through her a wedding reception at her house. I was to have it waiting for them when they got back from Wedding and Honeymoon in Hawii. At this event I met a Woman named Patrisha, we hit it off,it was like we knew each other all our lives. She was getting ready to visit her parents who had moved from there family home in Cliffton NJ to Tampa FL. She asked me if I would like to accompany her. I said I would love to and the following week we were off. Now I personally had never been out of California, so when I got to Fla. I was blowen away by the White Sands and Sea Oats so much that when I got back to Cal. I packed my shit I moved to Panama City Fla. Got me a little shack on the water and partied and played until I ran out off money,about a year. I then moved to Pensacola Fla. where I got a job installing sprinkler systems.Bounced around until I found my self in the Keys. Growing up my dad tought me how to Salt and Fresh Water fish.so I knew how to rig baits, tie hooks, ect. I went down to Robbies Charters in Islamarada Fla, (one of the Keys) and got a job on one of his Head Boats (thats a boat that takes out a bunch of people),(oboy I get to do my joke).I worked as an apprintess baiter and then after a year I was premoted to, wait for it,--------- Master Baiter LOL.Robbie and my self aventually got into a fight and I got fired. Sat on a bench in front of the Rat Bar at Holiday Islas Resort and Marina for about a week before I got a job on the Scarlet Lady Charter Boat (a big step up from Robbies) Now this is when this story starts.The Owner/Captain is a guy named Ray Greene,if you have ever seen Sanford and Son, Ray is the white Redd Foxx.He has been doing this for so long he doesnt even try any more, all he does is drive the boat. So it becomes your job to have the boat gasses up and ready to fish when its time to leave the dock.He doesnt even look for birds or any thing he just steers where you tell him. That means that the mate has to put out the baits, take care of the customers, watch the lines and look for fish.So a tipical day I would have the boat running and be ready to go when Ray would show up, get his coffee and take a seat on the bench at the Rat Bar.After I had every body on board I would signal Ray, he would tip his hat to the party and clime up to the Flying Bridge and off we would go. Holiday Islas is the evil Disneyland.Instead of Mickey Mouse we had Mickey Rat the Evil Pirate thus Mickey Rats Rat Bar. Any way This one day we went fishing and every body I talked to was heading to a place called the 409 Hump off of Marathon Key. I told Ray to head Northeast the opposite direction of the 409 Hump. As we cross the reef and head in to deep water, I put out the trolling baits,check to make sure the passingers are happy,and clime up in the Tuna Tower to look for Birds and Fish. After we are out about ten miles or so.I spot a boat dead in the water.I look closer with the Binoculars and found it to be a 36' Scarab off shore Racing Boat sitting nose down with the engine hatches open. When you fish in the Keys you find out right off the bat that there are Captains that smuggle and ones that dont. If you like extra money you try to get a job with one of the Captains that smuggle.So I come flying down the tower and tell Ray to put me on that boat.He pulls up to the side of the Scarab and I jumped on board. Once on board I check down stairs and its full of Bails of Pot marked 1 of 80 -80 of 80.The Mother Load. On the rare occation this happends the smugglers have secret radio channels,for instance, Ray gets on the radio and call are friend Dave - Yellowfin this is the Scarlet Lady Whiskey Papa 3320 come in, yea this is the Yellowfin go a head Ray. Then ray would say go to channel 5 witch ment to go to channel 13 on channel 13 he would tell dave to go to Zulu witch was channel 7 and then finely to Todo witch which is channel 8. Then the code for Bails of Pot was Man its the biggest Wahoo Ive ever seen followed by the Lorance Numbers.Then who was ever close would haul ass to those numbers.On this day it was the Yellowfin that was close.Ive all ready got several Bails on Rays boat when Dave gets there. Now Ray and Dave are backing up to the Scarab one at a time and Im throughing Bails on both boats. Off in the distance theres a boat headed toward us, he thinks we got a school of Mahi Mahi going and he wants in. I tell Ray the second I can see the driver were out of here. He say no get it all. I get scared and after I tossed the last one on Daves boat, when Ray backed up I jumped off the Scarab and said hit it and we were gone. There was a dock line hanging off the front of the scarab and it got caught in one of Dave propellers on that last back up and killed one of his motors so Dave kinda limps off in another direction.After awhile Dave calls and tells us that hes on one engine so we rondevous in 600ft of water.All right you got to picture this, were in the Shark infested waters of the Gulf Stream in 6 footers. In order to cut the rope out of Daves prop you have to shut off both engines. This makes the boat sit in whats called the Trough or sideways so what happends is a wave hits the boat and pushes it, as the boat goes over the next wave it dips and the oppasite side of the boat is closest to the surface.So heres what I had to do. I put on Fins, Mask and Snorkel , as the boats dips I jump over the side swim under the boat , grab the propeller shaft, cut on the rope while the next wave is pushing the boat, then waiting for the dip to come up , let go of the shaft swim up , gasp a breath of air, swim back down , get a hold of the shaft before the next wave crashes and pushes the boat again.On the fifth time I went under there was just a little more rope to cut and I stayed longer then I should of. As I got the last bit of rope out and tryed to get to the surface the next wave broke and pushed the boat at the same time I was comming up and pinned me to the bottom of the boat, as the boat hits me it knocks what air I have left out of me. I cant come up the side I was trying to, and Im pretty much gonna drown, my SCUBA training kicked in and I started gulping, grabed the Keel of the boat pulled my self to the wave pushing side of the boat and let go. Because of the size of the boat it was moving faster than me so I was able to get to the surface and not drown.But I tell you that was the closest Ive ever come.So any way every bodies boat was opperating properly so we took are parties fishing and at the end of the day we went back to the dock like nothing happend.Ray told the customers the trip was on him and sent them on there way with a great vacation story and a few pictures of yours truly tossing Bails of Pot on board. I cleaned the boat like always and went home. About 11:00 pm I got a call from ray telling me to be at the boat 5:00 am. When I got to the boat I was told Dave had contacted the owner and the owner wanted us to be at Alligator Light at 6:30 am.Ray and Dave took the boats out to the Light and ancored up and pretended to be throughing the cast net on bait. Two trap boats pull up, one to each boat and we start throughing the Bails on board. When were done they take off in drifferent directions and we pulled ancore and went back to the dock.As it turned out we had gotten 29 of the 80 Bails. Dave new who's they were and returned them to the owner. About two weeks later Im sitting at my house watching the TV and theres a knock at the door and its dave and he hands me a brown paper bag and turns around walks away. I close the door, sit back down on the couch open the bag and theres 40 grand in C-notes. My girl friend at the time wasnt home so I took the hundreds and put them right next to each other on the bed and when see got home I got laid and she ghot a brand new 1986 VW Sarocco. That was only one of the many times I found shit floatin while I was in the Keys Most of the time you would find Bails that were satcurated with sea water and no good. Well I hope you enjoyed the story. TOAST