Memories of The Dearest

Sometimes in summer, the water is so flat, and so calm, and without a whisper or breath of wind, the Gulf becomes a mirror and reflects the sky. When the horizon disappears into a reflection of clouds and the remains of a thunderstorm from the night before, a distant boat will appear as a floating specter…lost in a sea of time.

Deep summer arrives after the rising heat in May burns into June, and the fireworks of Independence Day are past. Midsummer truly begins when the clock seems to stop, but the sun sets earlier every day. The days of deep summer in the Ten Thousand Islands cast a charm like no other. When the heat of the air melts into the water, just before August, anything can happen on Marco Island and sometimes does.

When The Dearest became a shipwreck on the sandbar just off the Marco Beach, it was indeed deep summer. The salty water was not cool to the touch, but tepid in a way that was a reminder of something prehistoric but ongoing. The stingrays were thick on that fateful year when the development of Marco was young and almost empty except for the swarms of mosquitoes and the pulse of the single caution light that was the heartbeat of the island.

South of the old schooner that grounded and became the shipwreck in the predawn light, a tall grove of beach pines was watching over an abandoned radar station and a reaching crescent of sand; until the three McDonnell Douglas aircraft began their attack.

When the mosquitoes began to build and become dark clouds and more than a magnificent menace, the airplanes from the Second World War and the Collier County Mosquito Control always flew three-a-breast when they began the dawn patrol assault. Before the first light was aglow on the concrete of the Marco Bridge, oily smoke was pouring as a mosquito fog from the exhausts of the aging but perfectly maintained aircraft. From Caxambas to old Marco, the marauding planes flew just over the rooftops of every island home in a daily and relentless pursuit to hold back the creeping edge of a vast mangrove archipelago and the birthplace of a hundred million tiny vampires.

The joke was on the newcomer who rushed to the phones to call the only deputy and cry that several planes were on fire and crashing; or that the sleepy island—that no one had ever heard of—was under attack.

After the almost daily vanquishing, and the mosquitoes and the airplanes were finished with the earth-shaking roar and battle over the island neighborhoods, every islander was awake, rolling out of bed, and ready to go to work. If working was not on the schedule—the airplane alarm clock—that was always a surprise, but never truly resented— might inspire an appetite and a drive for coffee and the unbeatable Fisherman’s Breakfast at the Snook Inn. For the more adventurous, a round of golf was always waiting with the unofficial golf pro.

Before the rising sun of the subtropics began to cook any little white ball that might look like an alligator egg, Big Albert blinked his big reptilian eyes, submerged into the largest water hazard on the Country Club golf course, and continued his role as the biggest alligator on Marco Island.

While lurking underwater, Big Albert might have begun to contemplate the nearby golf carts and the excited conversation as the locals were chattering about the newest event on a small island, which was the mysterious shipwreck of a wooden schooner on Marco Beach.

After midmorning began to heat the island, the first flight from Miami on Marco Island Airways flew over the golf course greens and the many watercourses, but before touching down on the island runway, every passenger at every window seat was always eager to see the new development and the miles upon miles of empty roads, and cul-de-sacs, and boating canals. Holding the island in place were a hundred miles of seawalls that were still waiting to become the boundaries for the first waterfront homes. In the early 1970s, many islanders were beginning to wonder if the promises of the new vision of paradise would hold true, but even in the early days of Marco development, hope was a commodity that never lost value.

Meanwhile, the Shell Club of Marco had long since turned off their flashlights and replaced the predawn search for seashells with a new interest in watching the early morning Marco Beach Boys evaluate the wreck of the wooden schooner.

The Beach Boys were gathered with the ladies of the Shell Club when the only deputy sheriff arrived in his cruiser to also stand and watch as scavengers in chest-deep water were stripping the old, crippled sailboat.

No one, it seemed, knew who found the stricken vessel first, but a cluster of foragers were somehow menacing as they were climbing over the wreck and stripping brass portholes, canvas and cordage, and even the prize of the bronze name plate that they had torn from the stern. The once shining namesake was green with a gulf patina but still offering the most notable clue to the origin of the beachside mystery: The Dearest, Nassau Bahamas.

The swarm of scroungers who were at work were clearly not the captain, passengers, or owner of The Dearest because the scavengers were behaving as if caught in a clandestine thievery. The stripping crew seemed guilty when they happened to glance at the watching islanders and the only police officer on Marco Island, and suddenly, without a word, the foraging stopped.

The morning of the wreck of The Dearest was truly a snapshot in time, until the moment passed, and the hope for the future of Marco Island began again.