I've written about the guy with no shirt before...He was my blood brother; and a dependable friend. He had one serious weakness; and that was alcohol. I didn't care, though, because we had been friends and blood brothers since we were both about 7 or 8 years old. Unfortunately, cancer claimed him in 1987.
The stringer of sand trout was the result of another adventure. We needed bait; and knew that there were plenty of mullet just inside the mouth of South Bay. We beached the boat just outside the mouth, and David tossed the anchor over the side, just for safety's sake. We left his girlfriend aboard to watch the boat; and we walked around into South Bay with the cast net and bait bucket.
We caught a bucket of finger mullet; and were heading back to the boat, when
David noticed a boat that was floating out in the middle of the ship
channel..."That boat looks almost like ours...", he noted.
"That is our boat!", I exclaimed.
To make a long story short, he and Barbara kept me from trying to swim after the boat, and some guys working a dredge nearby saw our predicament and retrieved the boat for us.
Why did it drift away? Barbara thought she saw a turtle on shore, so she went to look at it. When she stepped off the boat, it floated; and the anchor line, instead of paying out, caught on a cleat. With a short angle, the anchor couldn't dig in, and soon was dangling as the boated floated in about 40 feet of water.
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