Say hey kids; my tales of Florida are stories about the days when I was a young man and Florida was a wild, unsettled place full of screaming parrots, crazed wild monkeys, sharks and dangerous alligators. Your dad and uncles liked to hear about how I earned extra money wrestling alligators with the Seminole Indians. Now I’ am to old for that kind of work, but maybe I can remember an adventure to write about.
I remember a particular day that I will never forget! The day when I tangled with a huge salt-water crocodile de bull in the Florida Keys!
Marooned on Crocodile Island
Me marooned on Crocodile Island in 1973
Many years ago when I first moved to Florida, I bought a small boat and began a small business; hauling supplies from the Florida mainland to our neighbors in the Bahama Islands and then returning to America with Bahamian exports. While searching for a boat to purchase, I was fortunate to meet a Miami sea captain, who for forty years had transported watermelons from Homestead, Florida to Nassau, Bahama. He decided to retire and offered his boat named the Watermelon for sale.
The Watermelon was an old 26-foot wooden boat built in Nova Scotia, Canada by a master craftsman boat builder. She had a very wide beam of 11 feet, which made the craft appear to be oval shaped. With a small cuddy cabin forward, she was a very seaworthy boat and she could haul heavy loads safely. The boat had a diesel motor and a single mast that could hold a bit of sail. The crazy old captain had painted the hull green/yellow and the deck, cabin and sail red. Then he painted black dots all over the red deck and cabin making the entire boat look like a watermelon which had been cut in half and set afloat on the ocean. She was named 'The Watermelon".
I was able to buy the Watermelon for a very low price. The old man demanded that anyone who bought his beloved boat must swear to keep her painted like a watermelon and not change her name. The tough, local, longshoremen and seamen of Miami did not want to be caught dead piloting that funny looking boat around the pirate-infested Caribbean Sea! I not having much money and being new to this business swallowed my pride and agreed to take care of the old mans beloved vessel. I paid the weather beaten old sea captain every penny I had and he happily accepted the pittance that amounted to only a fraction of the boats true value because he knew I would take care of her. I was now the new captain of the odd little Watermelon boat.
One lovely but hot summer day, on my return voyage from Nassau and only a few miles from my port of destination, my journey was unexpectedly interrupted. After rounding Islamorada and entering the Gulf of Mexico, the Watermelon experienced a sudden bump and a jolt causing her to shudder and slow to a stop.
“How could I have run aground out here”, I wondered as I peered over the side at the emerald green water? I knew that the Gulf was at least fifty feet deep at this location?
Confused, I walked to the stern and looked down at the propeller only to be startled by a big, green, beak, shaped head with beady eyes protruding from the surface and staring at me.
“What the heck!” I said as I jumped backward, scared near to death.
I calmed when I realized that the head belonged to a harmless, giant, green sea turtle. He was as unsettled from our open water encounter as I was.
His expression seemed to be asking me, “What did you do that for?”
“Sorry turtle!’ I yelled.
I was happy to see him dive below the surface and swim away unharmed flipping me off with his tail as he dove.
I returned to the helm of my little boat that was loaded at the bow with straw hats and piles of coconut seeds that the Bahamians had carved to resemble hairy, screaming, monkey heads. Tourists from the North, especially New Jersey and New York bought these Bahamian monkey head sculptures by the dozens. The cuddy cabin was filled to the brim with cases of Kalik ale destined for Sloppy Joes Pub in Key West.
I put my boat into drive, throttling forward, but she did not move. I checked the stern again and this time noticed that my propeller was broken!
“Thanks a lot turtle!” I yelled at the ocean. “Your shell must be as hard as a rock! Thanks a lot!”
I had a spare prop but knew I could not safely make the repair out there in the Gulf of Mexico so I sat down to look at my navigation charts. Hoisting my sail in this dead calm would be a waste of time, but a strong westerly current was pushing my craft on a course that I calculated would pass near a small-uninhabited Island called Isle de la Crocodilians El Bull, which is the Spanish name that the explorer Ponce De Leon had given that place when his expedition first discovered it in the year 1493. The English translation is roughly The Island of Bull Crocodiles.
Huge, vicious Bull Crocodiles once inhabited this Island and several members of De Leon’s party were taken during the night and devoured when the giant reptiles attacked them as they slept. Even armed with muskets, the Spaniards were forced to retreat and flee the Island vowing never to return. On their charts, they marked the Island with the skull and crossbones symbol, a danger warning to all seafarers.
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| Man eating, mutant, crocodile bull alligators on Crocodile Island. |
Comforted by the knowledge that years ago trappers had killed all the crocodiles, I planned to beach my boat on Crocodile Island where I could fix my propeller. My drift and wind calculations put my ETA at about three hours hence. Since I was now at the mercy of the ocean current, I put on an oversized straw hat and sat down in a shady spot deciding to hydrate myself to combat the effect of the blazing sun.
I hydrated for about an hour, filling the transom with empty Kalik cans, before I fell asleep. Two hours into my nap I awoke to the sound of gentle surf and could see the lush tropical Island off my port beam. I grabbed the bowline and jumped into the waist deep water pulling the Watermelon to the beach. The sun was now setting and I knew that I would not be able to finish my prop repair before dark. With the cuddy cabin full of Kalik and the rest of the boat loaded with straw hats and carved monkey heads, I found no desirable place to sleep, so I grabbed my pup tent and went ashore to make camp.
The Island had an eerie calm; the place was creepy! I decided to string empty Kalik cans onto some fishing line and hang them just above the ground around the perimeter of my campsite. Thus, I had made a crude alarm system. If someone or something approached me during the night they would trip on the string of cans sounding a warning alarm.
Late that night, inside my tent, I awoke from a deep sleep to clinking sounds! The noise became frantic; something was tangled in my trip line. I dove head first from my tent and immediately saw a huge croc. Distracted, the big bull was thrashing its tail and snapping at the line of cans tangled around its body until it saw me! The laser like focus of his fire red eyes burned a hole into my soul.
“Oh my God! Help me!” I spoke out loud; as the reptile crouching low began to cautiously approach me in a choppy, marching gait.
I scrambled to my feet realizing that the clever beast had cut off my route of escape. He was standing between the Watermelon and me; I could not make a run for it! Forced to fight, I began to use wrestling moves that can be very effective on a common alligator.
I feigned to the left tossed a sand clod directly over its head and moved quickly to my right prepared to leap onto the beasts back while his head was turned. He was to fast, lighting fast, and he almost decapitated me! His jaws snapped shut with a loud clap as I spun in midair. Still hurtling through the air, I pulled my head down and away just in time. He only got a bite of my long hair and ripped some out right at the crown of my skull. I rolled over and over churning up beach sand as he chased me across the beach the snapping jaws inches from ending the battle, his evil red eyes glowing in the dim light of the night. Lucky for me, the string of Kalik cans entangling his body snagged a piece of driftwood momentarily distracting the croc; long enough for me to regain my feet.
With his massive head turned far to the right, he began biting at the cans. That’s when I made my move. Leaping through the air I delivered a Superman punch to the croc’s jaw and landed squarely on the beasts back. Now in full mount, I applied a figure four leg hold around his belly and sank my fingers under the boney orbital ridges of both eye sockets digging deep, grasping the leather covered supra orbital ridge above his eyeballs. With my death hold applied it was now time to ride that son of a gun!
Just like an alligator, the croc began twirling in a death spiral. His enormous weight almost crushed me each time I was beneath the monster, but I clung on for dear life. I knew he would eventually tire and he did. That’s when I released my grip from the eye sockets and began rubbing his belly with both hands right at the spot where a human would have a bellybutton.
The sleeper technique worked! He began to quiver as if having a seizure or maybe more like silent, hysterical laughter before going limp, asleep. I didn’t’ stop squeezing my figure four leg hold until I was absolutely certain that he was out cold!
I pushed the reptile off of me and hurriedly collected my equipment. Then I began to run for the boat. When I reached waters edge, I glanced over my shoulder and to my surprise saw the Croc running after me. He was gaining ground fast.
That sleeper hold should have lasted 10 minutes at least! The clever reptile had played opossum to get me off his back. He was never sleeping! No man can out swim a crocodile and the tide had come up putting a good ten yards of water between the Watermelon and me. Running at top speed, I dropped all my gear in the surf and dove head first into the warm shimmering water, swimming fast. My experience told me I would never make it to the boat but I kept swimming faster than I had ever swum before expecting at any moment to feel the crushing pain of those treacherous jaws!
To my amazement I reached the boat and scrambled aboard Watermelon. The Crocodile of bull alligator was struggling in the surf. The string of Kalik cans still tangled around the creature had acted like a sea anchor and slowed him down. Once again my habit of over hydrating had been of great benefit.
I pulled the anchor and drifted off the Island into the Gulf waters. The stubborn beast tracked me for a bit but then gave up and returned to his home. Only then, once out of danger, did I notice the bleeding and the deep gash in my left arm. As I began to lose consciousness I recall thinking to my self, “What a faker that mutant species, crocodile of bull alligator was!”
I vowed to myself, “If I survive this wound, never again will I believe a Crock of Bull!”
