The Paddle Wheeler, the Cowboys, and the Gold

After the Marco Beach Boys met the world-famous treasure hunter, Mel Fisher, at the Septembers nightclub on Marco, those of us that could wanted to become scuba divers. Diving is not for everyone. The Beach Boys have always been blessed and at the first scuba diving lesson, we were fortunate enough to have a veteran dive master and awesome instructor.

The trial for learning if we could become scuba divers was truly amazing. Our dive master and instructor was Jim Mosley Jr. He had every certification offered by multiple scuba diving organizations, and when he announced, “Diving is not for everyone,” and “Let’s see if you guys can become divers,” we were a little taken aback by his approach to finding out who could become a diver and who should not venture beneath the waves.

When we began, Jim took five of us and patiently fitted us all with every component necessary for scuba diving. After gearing up, we were all sitting high and dry on the boat dock and suited up with facemask, flipper fins, weight belt, and the vest-like buoyancy compensator that holds the compressed air tank so recognizable with scuba diving. We were also feeling quite foolish as we were sitting on the dock with our feet and flippers hanging off, masks on, and breathing air from our air tanks while Diver Master Mosley looked us over.

As we sat there breathing the air from the tank on dry land, he would examine each of us and ask; “Are you breathing okay?” He carefully questioned each individual before moving on to the next possible scuba student. “Do you feel confident breathing from the self-contained air supply?”

We were all thinking, yes, we are perfectly fine because what can happen here on the dock and not in the water? We were also thinking ‘this is silly, we want to get in the water and start exploring shipwrecks.’ We were also occupied with thought of a shipwrecked paddle wheeler waiting off shore with a teasing mystery of lost cowboys, cattle, and gold.

Our diver instructor, however, was focused and determined, and his examination of our abilities continued. Of course, everyone was instructed to give the standard hand signal for okay by connecting index finger and thumb in the universal underwater signal for okay. After about five minutes of everyone breathing and hand signaling okay, Jim announced; “Alright, let’s see if you guys can become divers.”

At this point Jim produced a pitcher. The type of pitcher used to hold a pitcher of beer. He then reached down to the water by the dock and filled the battered old barroom container with dockside saltwater. Next, he approached the first of us in the sitting line of five and pulled that person’s facemask away from their forehead enough to fill the mask completely full of saltwater.

Jim then announced to the first Beach Boy with the facemask full of water. “Open your eyes and look at me through the saltwater . . . and breathe through your mouthpiece.”

Imagine - now with a face full of saltwater, the first candidate’s nose was also underwater along with open, blurred, and stinging eyes. 

During that fateful trial for scuba diving safety and adaptability, three of us could indeed carry-on breathing through the mouth with flooded nose and open eyes submerged in saltwater. The other two candidates however instantly ripped off their facemasks as soon as the underwater face covering was filled with water. The two who could not breathe through the mouthpiece were at once coughing, sputtering, and spitting out saltwater.

Jim the Master Diver allowed both of the failed candidates to try again but the coughing, sputtering, and the instant panic that prompted the ripping off of the face mask was instantly present again.

Jim then announced, “As we talked about, diving is not for everyone. Why don’t you guys get out of this scuba gear and let me buy you a beer when I’m done with the others.”

When the two out of five left the docks, the remaining three of us were instructed to keep on breathing with the saltwater filled masks. Finally, when the others were out of sight, and as he continued to watch over our breathing, Jim declared, “You guys are going to become very good divers. You must understand, if you can’t sit on the dock and breathe through your mouthpiece with your eyes and nose full of seawater you have no business underwater in the open ocean.

When the scuba diving test was complete, we excitedly told our dive master about the paddle wheeler shipwreck we wanted to dive after completing our certification training.

Everyone loves a mystery, and when a mystery ship goes down and is found - and no one is really certain where the ship came from - the intrigue becomes more intense. About 30 miles offshore of Marco there is a paddle wheel steamboat that went down sometime between the late 1800’s, and before the U-boat action of World War II.

What is known about the mystery ship is that it was a paddle wheeler about 150 feet long. What is not known is why a large riverboat now rests on the sandy seafloor 30 miles west of Marco.

Some believe that old Mississippi-style riverboat was engaged in bringing some of the millions of bricks used to construct Fort Jefferson on the Dry Tortugas. Others are convinced it was a cattle barge used by Tampa Bay cowboys to transport herds of cows to Cuba in exchange for gold.

The Beach Boys believed the cowboy story because that was the story with the gold! Apparently, before the Spanish American War, cowboys from Tampa would herd their cattle onto barges and ship them to Cuba. The international currency was gold coins and we considered that if the cowboys did deliver the cows and sold them for gold there must be gold coins still on the shipwreck. We did not want to think about the version where the paddle wheeler sank on the way down to Cuba and the cowboys did not sell their cows for gold and did not have at least one wild and crazy night in Havana.

 Tom Williams is a Marco Islander. He is the author of two books: “Lost and Found” and “Surrounded by Thunder—the Story of Darrell Loan and the Rocket Men.” Both books are available on Kindle and Nook.