I grew up in a coastal, Sowthwest Florida town during the
eighties. Friends and I occasionally used my parents 24'
Aquasport for water skiing, pleasure boating or diving
wrecks in the Gulf. One Friday evening in July, 1984,
three friends and I took our boat out for a night of shark
fishing. It was a night we would not soon forget.
I steered away from the dock while the guys stowed the gear
and rigged the poles. Almost immediately, I noticed
something wasn't right. We had moved away from the
protective shelter of the marina and the mangrove forests
that line the shoreline of the bay. The wind had stiffened
yet the seas remained calm in the protected back waters.
A flash of heat lightning drew our attention to the sky
above which had grown unseasonally dark. As we approached
the pass that lead out to the Gulf of Mexico, we could see
the mountains of water forming in the channel ahead. We
considered turning back but ruled out logic and decided to
carry on.
About two miles out, the 6'to 10' seas got the better of
Mike who was attempting to keep his dinner down in the
cabin below. John was riding the bow, on look out for the
crab trap bouys that liter the coastal waters while Armando
and I contemplated our options. We decided to try some
back water fishing so we came about and headed back to
Wiggins Pass.
Immediately upon entering the pass, the seas and wind
calmed. There was a hole just inside the pass that had
been teaming with trout and snapper for the past month. As
we steered the boat to position it over the hole, John who
was still riding the bow looked back at me and asked "Who's
that?" I looked in the direction that John had pointed and
saw a figure walking along the beach.
The boat was now in idle, moving forward by its own
inertia. John and I followed the figure as it continued
walking along the beach before disappearing into the
mangrove trees that grew out over the shoreline and into
the bay. John paused before looking back and asking me
what that was. Keep in mind. The black storm clouds that
filled the sky made it extremely dark that night. No moon,
no stars, no lights from condos that now line the coast.
On the water, it was about as dark as it could get. Yet
you could easily see a figure walking along the beach at a
brisk pace.
The bow of the boat had moved very close to shore and was
about to make contact with the mangroves. John stood up to
grab onto a limb to stop our forward progress when the
figure that had been walking along the beach now appeared
walking "through" the branches of the trees. As it
approached, it walked directly in front of the boat,
stopped, turned and was face to face with John. Eight feet
was all that separated the two. While it approached, legs
and arms were clearly visible yet while it turned to face
John, it had no features. You could clearly see the head,
squared off shoulders, arms and torso ( view of the legs
were obstructed by the mangroves and position of the bow of
the boat) but there were no eyes, mouth or facial features
to make out. In addition, it was though the person had
been dipped in green phosphorous. It glowed green. John
had grown extremely anxiously and urged me to move the boat
away from shore. I turned to check our stern and rammed
the throttle into reverse. By the time I turned back
around, the figure was gone. I shouted at John, "Where did
it go?" He turned to me with a blank stare and said "It
just disappeared."
We moved about thirty feet off the beach and tossed out the
anchor. We stayed there for hours talking about what we
had just witnessed. We concluded that an expedition that
was surveying the remains of some sort of wreck just off
shore from the pass may have unwittingly disturbed a sailor
that had gone down with its ship. Or, the sailor may have
made it to shore but never left. He may have been looking
to hitch a ride back to his ship that did not survive the
event which took it to the bottom of its unfaithful voyage
so many years before.
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