Many people wonder what was it like to grow up as a sailor on the water here before this coast was "discovered" in the mid-1970s, when mosquito control and I-75 brought down hundreds of thousands of Northerners. I get asked that question several times a year by newcomers to Southwest Florida who meet me at book signings, and I usually give the same short reply.

"Well, I guess the best way to explain it is that I grew up as a conch shell sailor. Few of 'em around nowadays . . ."

Frequently folks don't quite understand my brief answer-I admit it's a bit odd-so here are some tales from that time to illustrate what it was like around these waters so many years ago.

A Shipwreck off Marco
My earliest memory of a sea story on this coast comes from the near shipwreck of Dad's sailing ketch on a hot summer night in 1963. The Por Fin (Spanish for at last) was a gorgeous little ship, built only months earlier in Japan to a classic Francis Hereshoff design from 1942. On that fateful night she was being delivered from Miami by a crusty professional captain and his wife.

The voyage was going well until crab-trap lines wrapped around her prop shaft at Caxambas Pass while she was sailing along the dark coast of Marco Island. Soon she drifted, engine useless, until hard aground on the shoals where she was pounded by the surf. With malevolently perfect timing, the tide then chose to ebb. Wading ashore on the strange island, the captain found a house and called my father up in Cape Coral, who set out on the long overland trek (down the old Tamiami Trail) to Marco Island. Arriving at daybreak, he made his way out with provisions through clouds of mosquitoes to his new boat, and they all waited for the arrival of the United States Coast Guard.

You see-and this amazes modern boaters-back then it was the Coast Guard

that hauled vessels off shoals-for free. Let me repeat that for you disbelievers-for free. Part of your tax money at work. There were no boat-assist companies, no $5,000 salvage and towing fees, no adversarial negotiations while the boat pounds farther aground.

But the Coasties weren't close by. The Coast Guard's presence for the entire Southwest Florida coast between Engle-wood and Marathon was based on a houseboat barge at Fort Myers Beach. As you might be able to imagine by this point in the story, it certainly wasn't a spit-and-polish outfit, but was most definitely well loved by the seamen in the area.

The Coasties had an old 40-foot utility boat that could go 10 or 12 knots on a good day. But this evidently wasn't a good day, because it took the Coast Guard crew 10 hours to go the 40 miles to the Por Fin.

Rescue operation procedures were a bit different in those days, too. When the cutter crew arrived at the scene, instead of asking if the stranded sailors had enough provisions, they asked if the victims had any to spare for the rescuers. And nobody thought that was unusual. Hey, the boys in blue were hungry and thirsty from the long voyage!

No problem. Dad the former Boy Scout had prepared well and brought more than enough food and drink, including a case of beer in an ice box. Sure enough, the small C.G. cutter was soon anchored off in deeper water, with Dad and the Coasties relaxing over several cool ones and discussing just how they were going to get his dreamboat floating again. A couple of hours later, the deed was done, and my father had a tale that I've heard for 40 years.

Stormy Lessons from Evil Ladies
Recently we've been hammered by hurricanes on this coast, but years ago I got some salient life experiences regarding large tropical storms. Lessons I have always remembered from those wicked ladies called hurricanes.

The first was Hurricane Betsy in September 1965. We all watched as it went up through the northern Bahamas, heading for the Carolinas and away from us. Deadly Hurricane Donna, which my family missed, was still very much in everyone's mind and there was much sympathy for the people of the Outer Banks, where we thought Betsy was going to strike.
Then she turned around.
She did not just alter course. Hurricane Betsy made weather history by completely reversing course 180 degrees and heading back southwest, toward. . .you guessed it. The storm crossed the east coast, traversed the Everglades and the bottom of Florida to our coast, where it turned and went north again, sending us strong winds and high tides. A few days later it slammed into New Orleans, causing massive flooding and much damage.

Even Dad was stunned by that storm, which is saying a lot. Lesson learned: Never, ever trust a hurricane. They are absolutely maniacal, with an evil sense of humor.

The next was Hurricane Alma in 1966, a Category Three hurricane that emerged from Nicaragua and charged up the eastern Gulf, raking our coast before finally going ashore near Tallahassee. The scariest thing about Alma was that she appeared in early June. Early June? It shocked the old timers because hurricanes weren't supposed to show up that early. It just wasn't proper. Nobody was ready.

By this time I was old enough to help in hurricane preparations, and Dad and I tied our boats up in a web of lines that would have satisfied a banana spider. We had long lines on anchors dug in forward and astern, spring lines, breast lines, and extra mooring lines. Then Dad insisted that we double all of them. We also took off everything that was loose, or might be blown loose, and put it all in our home, which soon resembled a ship chandlery's warehouse. Only after the boats were secured did we shutter up the house.

It was an exhausted man and boy who joined Mom and finally sat down and watched the only TV station for the region, WINK-TV, for clues as to where and when the monster was going to hit. No radar display, satellite photos, computer models of projected paths, or real-time information reports; just guess-and-by-gosh TV reporting. We ended up going outside and looking up at the sky. A pilot as well as a sailor, my father understood the nuances of weather pretty well. As he studied the clouds, he announced that we just might get lucky; the worst would miss us. That afternoon he taught me to face the wind and stick my right arm out straight to my side to find out where the center of a tropical storm is located. The intensity of the wind gives an idea of how far away it is.

That was the first time I ever tried to stand in 80-mile-an-hour winds, and it impressed me greatly. Scared me, really. But to our profound relief, Dad was right and Alma did not strike us directly. We got only the outer winds, with no damage. Lesson learned: Weather forecasting is an educated guess-always prepare for the worst.

Hurricane Agnes came along in 1972, just as I was entering the immortal-fearless phase of my life, and it was then that I did something very stupid. I'm only telling y'all now so you won't do it. I was living on Estero Island (Fort Myers Beach), and as the hurricane approached, I went surfing, just to say I did. Hey, a lot of other guys were doing it, too. Before you get too judgmental, remember that this was back during the days of the Beach Boys, and the surfer culture was big. Also, back then the authorities were spread too thin to try to deter people from being dumb. These days, if you even look like you might do something dumb on the water, there is somebody around to yell at you.

During my macho hurricane stunt, I managed to damn near kill myself when I was thrown down into the shell bottom by a wave that wouldn't let me come up. Suddenly the exhilaration turned to terror as I was held down by the liquid monster. Clawing my way to the surface, I struggled ashore and sat on the beach shaking uncontrollably, bleeding from a hundred small cuts. Lesson learned: Never play with the sea when it's in a rage. It can, and will, kill you for your arrogance.

Gunkholing in Paradise
Gunkholing is a sailor term for exploring out-of-the-way places. Thirty and 40 years ago, we had a fair number of them on this coast (actually, we still do-maybe someday I'll tell you where they are), and it was great fun to poke around back in the coves and islands. Pelican Bay, Johnson Shoals and Pejuan Beach at Cayo Costa Island. Hurricane Hole at Punta Blanca Island. Abandoned and mysterious Useppa Island. Estero Bay and Hickory Bay. Goodland Bay at Marco Island. Russell and Indian Keys near Everglades City. Pavilion Key, Flamingo and Shark River. Cayo Pelau at Charlotte Harbor. Popcorn Cove and Tarpon Bay on the Caloosahatchee River.

My favorite place was Panther Key, down in the Ten Thousand Islands. It had a nice beach with an ominous legend-the tales of Juan Gomez, fugitive pirate. At night your imagination could get carried away, especially since you were probably the only boat there. But it was beautiful, too. Clear jade-colored water, bright-green mangroves, blue sky and an unequaled sunset view. The sounds of hundreds of birds and the smell of fresh fish cooking on a beach fire. To say time at Panther was relaxing is an understatement. It was almost like a meditation retreat, only it was totally free. All you had to do was sail there.

On that beach at Panther Key over 30 years ago I first heard the cassette tape of a new ballad singer from Key West named Jimmy Buffett, while drinking Mount Gay rum at sunset. I've been a ParrotHead Phan ever since. Whenever I think of Jimmy in the old days, I remember Panther. It's still there, but now you have to share the island.

Thirty years ago you could anchor in these gunkholes and not see another vessel for days. Swim naked, sing loud, and unwind from what we thought of then as the stress of modern society. Little did we know just how much pressure civilization would later produce.

The flip side to gunkholing back then was that you were completely on your own. Few marinas, not many depth sounders or speedometers, no quick rescue, few LORAN sets and no GPS, no EPIRBs, and no one around to help. The rare boats with radios had huge UHFs-VHF was in the future. The UHF radio's box was the size of a large microwave, with vacuum tubes and sinister whirring noises. It worked well in good weather when it was warmed up, but who could you call? The emergency frequency at 2182 was monitored most of the time; but no one was close, so you had better figure out how to get yourself out of whatever mess you got into.

The lack of electronic gizmos didn't stop us. We sailed into gunkholes slowly and on the half-flood tide. Sailors used lead lines (I can still "swing the lead" from all my years of practice), took land bearings, dead-reckoned the vessel's position and eyeballed the speed. If you grounded and couldn't get off right away, you had a beer or two while waiting for a higher tide. Often the beer was cool, not cold, because there was no refrigeration and the ice had run out. Beer was kept cool by putting it in the bilge, the coolest part of the boat. A truly cold beer was a luxury to be relished.

But with all of that, we had a great time. After all, the whole point of gunkholing was, and still is, to relax. And that we most certainly did.

The Bridges of Lee County
In the mid 1960s a bunch of bridges were built in Lee County to satisfy the expanding population-the Cape Coral Bridge, the New 41 Bridge in Fort Myers, the Sanibel Bridge and the Big Carlos Pass Bridge between Estero Island and Black Island. The original Edison Bridge stood at Fort Myers, and there were old-fashioned, quaint-looking swing bridges at Fort Myers Beach, Matlacha, Boca Grande and Alva. Sailors could either get under or through these bridges, and did so with a certain joviality that is missing nowadays.

Bridge tenders would lean over as you transited and converse with you about where you were bound for or from, joke about the weather, or tell the latest saltwater gossip. Tenders and sailors became friends, many times greeting each other after a long voyage with real delight, swapping stories in the five minutes it took to get through.

Believe it or not, many times sailors wouldn't even have to signal for a bridge to open back then. The bridge tender would see you coming and just open it. There were no transit-time restrictions and very few boatmen actually sounded the official regulation opening signal. In fact, few of the old rag sailors had real boat horns. Most of them had sea shells they used to call to each other and to open a bridge. Conch and whelk shells. Conchs were the best, since they were usually bigger and had a louder sound.

Now I'll confess a little secret-I still use a conch shell to open a bridge even though my boat has a perfectly good horn. But a mechanical squawking noise just doesn't have the same soulful wail as a conch shell. Besides, it's fun to see the look on the folks' faces aboard the fancy yachts nearby.

Racing in Paradise
I felt the need for sea combat after reading my first Horatio Hornblower novel in '67. Since the Royal Navy wasn't defending our shores against Napoleon, I had no opportunity to emulate my hero. Until I discovered offshore racing.

Many of you may be familiar with offshore racing under sail. Modern racing is very regulated and extremely expensive. Occasional protests can descend into a litigation hell. Not so on this coast back then. It was simple, cheap and fun. In fact, the worst insult you could call a sailor-which would result in blood being shed-was "a sea lawyer." Protests were rare.

We started the races a little differently, with Bahama starts. This was a technique we picked up from the Exuma Islanders and their Out Island Regatta. Vessels were anchored abreast of each other on the starting line with their sails down. The start boat (sometimes one of the contestants) would yell out the countdown time and then shoot a shotgun, with the blast going out over unoccupied water. Immediately, all hands on every boat would simultaneously haul in the anchor and haul up the sails, to the accompaniment of shrieks of laughter, sailors falling overboard, and dire threats to crews of flogging or rum stoppage from giggling captains. Bahama starts were a great equalizer between rich and poor sailors. As I write this I'm laughing at the memories of those starts. Hilarious!

I started racing aboard the boats of two of the legends of the coast-Gene and T-Bone (a schooner captain) Whatley. Gene had a pretty 33-foot cutter-rigged boat named Fantasea.

My bunk was the quarter-berth-a coffin-sized hole filled with spare anchors, line, sails and me (I was much smaller then). The crew drank beer and rum and worked our hearts out for Capt. Whatley, even though he was benign and never threatened us. I learned a lot about the sea from Gene and T-Bone Whatley. Gene was also a champion conch-shell player and taught me the finer points of that art.

By 1970, at the age of 17, I had become the youngest offshore skipper on the coast, racing a 24-foot Irwin sloop, the Whistler. The entry fee for one race to Naples from Fort Myers Beach was a case of beer. Out of my sense of camaraderie I brought two cases to the skippers' pre-race meeting. A newly arrived sailor from a real yacht club someplace up North objected when he saw me. He said that I was too young to be an offshore skipper and certainly too young to be drinking, or even possessing, that beer. Gene Whatley told him in very plain language that he knew for a fact that I was man enough to go to sea, and to drink that beer, because I had done both on his boat. That ended that, and the meeting started when Gene sounded his big ol' conch shell. By the way, I beat the guy in the race.

Sunsets in Paradise
One thing hasn't changed in all these years-our beautiful sunsets over the Gulf of Mexico. Listen carefully as you watch those incredible colors magically appear across the sky, and in the distance you may hear an old seaman sound his conch shell, the traditional sailor thank you for another day on our waters.

And who knows? That seaman just might be yours truly, thanking God for allowing me to grow up in a place we call paradise, as a conch shell sailor.

Pine Island's Robert N. Macomber is a lecturer on maritime history and the award-winning author of the Honor series of naval fiction. His Web site is www.robertmacomber.com.