JIM HAWKINS

and the Minnie

Essay # 40

The Miami River

By Bob Rich

?

His plan, as he explained it to me, went like this…

(I don’t recall his name, but even if I did, it was likely false.? I’ll call him Jim.? Jim Hawkins.)

On Cuba’s Isla de Pinos, someone had come across an old Spanish graveyard.? That someone, in his words, the “old man”, was now gone, those days past, and the Revolution was now using the island, among other dark deeds, for some military activities.? Only a few graves, close to the beach, back in the brush.? But in the graveyard, in one of the graves, in a scene from The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, was found a loosely buried cache of silver casks.? Inside the casks were slabs of silver, cut into wedges.? The “old man” only brought back a few, intending to return, but as we know, the world changed.? He never made it back to the site but he gave the silver and the location (as best he could recollect) to Jim.

It was one of these wedges that Jim Hawkins gave to me.? About the size of a slice of Fish House key lime pie.

I’d say it was 1970.? He had walked into our old shop, looking like he had slept the night at Tom’s Marine Bar across the street.? He needed some gear.? Not a lot.? He explained that he was light on cash, but he showed me the wedge of silver and said he would leave it as security.

That’s when he told me the plan.

He was going to go to the Isle, anchor off shore, ghost in in a small inflatable boat (turns out the best gear he had on the Minnie), retrieve the booty, and get back to his mothership and make a getaway.? It was a bold plan, but he was just wild-eyed enough.

The boat, the Minnie, was a hard used Desco style trawler of about 60 feet.? He bought from us a new (the most basic) Simpson 55 ship to shore radio and antenna, a small depth finder, and a Bendix 555 portable radio direction finder.

I had to see this operation, so a hundred yards or so up the South Fork of the Miami River he showed me the boat.? Looks are deceiving on these shrimpers.? And that Avon inflatable, she had something left.? “She’s old, but she’ll hold.”? Good Cat 363 engine, Ritchie Globemaster 453 compass, and Metal Marine Model 15 autopilot.? With that and the RDF, she could well cruise the Caribbean.

Then Jim left me the silver and set out.?

I put it in the back of the upper right drawer of my new Steelcase desk.

I maybe had forgotten, but two or three years later, that same Jim Hawkins, now looking like he had just ground his way back from Kaffiristan, wandered in.?

Handed me a greasy folded sheaf of cash.?

Right.

I slid open that drawer and gave him his silver.

He never told me how it went.

The Old Shrimp Boat Fleet - Miami, Florida

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