Today is the Day

Once upon a time on Marco, there was a nightclub with the name Septembers. It was all the rage because it was new, there was great live entertainment with a full band - including a drummer - and one never knew who would be there. The Marco Beach Boys and Girls were regulars, and on occasion, celebrities from far and away would arrive and charm our islanders with a unique presence and the awesome history of their conquests.

On one hot and sultry summer night, the Marco Beach Boys were bellied up to the bar with our boss Jim Martin. Jim was our best friend, benefactor, and mentor and still is to this day, but on that particular August evening with everyone taking shelter in the air-conditioning of Septembers, of Septembers, Jim gathered his crew because there was a very famous visitor that he knew and wanted us to meet.

“Boys,” Jim began - because there were no Beach Girls present at the time - “There is someone I want you all to meet.”

We at once rallied, moved over to a new position at the bar, where a tall, very tan, and adventuresome looking man was sitting next to Jim at the bar.

“Boys, I want you to meet Mel Fisher. Mel is the treasure hunter and salvage diver that found the Nuestra Atcoha less than a hundred miles from where you are standing tonight. The Atocha is one of the richest treasure ships ever found and Mel did the homework and found her after over two hundred years underwater.

Mel was a true gentleman and shook hands all round. He announced that he was very pleased to meet everyone and took enough time to make each of us feel special. Mel then confided that he believed there was more treasure nearby. He then shared the idea that another Spanish ship that departed from Havana might be wrecked and lost under the shifting sands of the Cape Romano Shoals. Cape Romano is the vast and shallow system of sandbars south of Marco. We all were rapt by Mel’s presence and by the gold watch he was wearing decorated with shipwrecked treasure. He regaled us with tales of underwater adventure and the thrill of seeking lost treasure and finalized with his famous and optimistic statement. “You never know, boys, when you might find something that will lead the way. That’s why every morning I begin with ‘Today is the Day!”’

Mel also explained that finding a sunken treasure ship in the present day can only be accomplished by extensive research through ancient archives. He also explained that the Spanish captains and officers were meticulous in recording every detail of every voyage in their ship’s logbooks.

The following is an example of the type of messages found on the seafloor of the Spanish Main.

On this 26th day of Augustus, in the year of our Lord 1733, we find ourselves in the service of the Holy Madonna Maria, the mother of God, and his Royal Majesty, King Phillip of Spain. After the death of our beloved Consulate of the Fleet, Capitan-General De Marcos de Vega, I find myself burdened with a weary heart, but honored with the authority to lead our ships home. His appointed Excellency, Don Mendoza Ortega, the governor of Havana, has ordered our ships post-haste to Cadiz.

We are four galleons and eighteen merchant ships of various tonnage and size, laden with the responsibility and prosperity of the last five years of holy conquest. Together and collectively, we are over one thousand souls in service to his Most Catholic Majesty’s high Spanish crown.

Our ships, I fear, are over burdened with the weight of our cargo and afflicted with the perils so common in these hot and tropic waters. Havana’s bay, from which we so recently departed, was so crystal, and so clear, that the many faults of our aged and earth-born vessels was too easily noticed. From the wicked sea-worms below that must surely feast on our very timbers, to the devil-rot, which hides in all places and makes the mighty oak weak, our prayers must be joined with the fabric of our vessels as the Holy Madonna carries us over her blessed creation.   

I pray that our efforts please and do not blaspheme, and that our mission to enrich the kingdom of Spain, leads only along the path that the Holy Madonna will allow us to follow.

His Majesty’s obedient servant: Capitan-General Juan Diego Garcia

After the first entry, the following penmanship was strained and jerky, with the elegance and flourish of the earlier writing replaced with an urgent need only to communicate.

Find us now, on the fifth day of our voyage, during the Holy month of the first day of September, in the year of our Most Holy Lord 1733.

A tempest has befallen our fleet and scattered us over the green and white mountains, which have been so recently created. Of the 22 ships that set sails together, only three of our galleons and one of our merchant ships remain in sight.

The wind has backed and veered but has now gained in augmentation to drive our failing vessels over the cresting waves at a frightening pace. Every soul aboard joins in the most earnest of prayers hoping for the divine intervention gained by our noble Christ on that most famous of storms upon the Sea of Galilee. Without such help, I fear that we are lost.

With my own eyes, I have seen three of our lesser vessels succumb to the churning waves and fall below the surface to embrace the Madonna. Even now, our own ship speaks loudly in protest to the suffering she must endure. Her timbers, below decks grown a continuous bedlam, as the howling winds aloft scream to declare a terrible blasphemy. The tempest in the rigging can only be described as the cry of the unfaithful, with every breath of the storm offering a new episode in the tale of our destruction. As with the heretic fables of the whirling dervish, every soul aboard is naked with fright, as our own vessel has been stripped of her sails. She now points her broken spars to heaven and offers only the tatters of her former clothing to be snapped in the rising wind. Green water is climbing in the hold and makes a mockery of the knowledge that we are heavy with a King’s treasure: Our mission, as we endure, purveys a sense of guilt and punishment, and launches a fear that no earthly price can buy a heavenly salvation.

Our other vessels, which remain in sight, are equally stricken, without sails, and only able to ride before the wind. As for the remainder of the fleet, I cannot imagine any ship able to withstand such punishment and survive. I now submit this account into a ship’s bottle sealed with a candle and dispatched onto the waves. With the Holy Madonna’s blessing, this record of our strife will be preserved and revealed. I had hoped to once again to see Cadiz, but now I can only wait to embrace the Holy Mother. I pray for our fleet, and for our lost one thousand souls.

~ Juan Diego Garcia: September 1, 1733

Although the above is fiction and an excerpt from “Lost and Found,” it was inspired by the evening with Mel Fisher, in September’s nightclub on Marco Island.

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