Chapter 5: Finders Keepers

Cody---The current had moved the Sally-Ann only about 500 yards from where she went down. That’s why we were able to find her so quickly. Why only 500 yards on that sandy bottom was what intrigued me. The strong Gulf Stream current should have moved it half-way up the Florida peninsula by now. But as we swam down, there she was, laying peacefully on her side, like a toy in an aquarium. Lionel and I high fived then he started inside. I watched the light he carried disappear down the hatch and I swam around her. Even broken she was beautiful. A rich man’s toy. At her bow I discovered what had stopped her journey north. She was wedged up against another boat! This boat had been there a while because it was half buried in the sand. Fish and other creatures had taken up residence on her and she was deteriorating from the salt water. I glanced back and did not see Lionel’s light, so I decided to explore this wreck. The door leading down was corroded off its’ hinges so I had no trouble looking inside. There were maybe 50 bales of something wrapped in heavy plastic laying scattered inside her.

“A drug smuggler!” was my first thought.

As I stared at those bales laying inside that old boat. I was startled by Lionel tapping me on the shoulder showing me a jeweler’s bag and pointing to a Rolex Mariner watch he was sporting on his right wrist. Then he pointed up, signaling it was time to begin our trip to the surface. I pointed to the bales. He raised one finger, I assumed he was giving me permission to take one. Later he would tell me that was not what he meant. He was pointing to the surface.

I swam just inside that old boat and picked up one bale. Then we started our slow ascent to the surface. Lionel stopped and signaled it was time to decompress. He shook his head as I showed him the bale. He showed me the bag of diamonds and the Rolex. After a few minutes we started up again. Just to be safe we stopped another time for a few minutes before we surfaced. When Lionel held the bag high out of the water both girls screamed and hugged each other. We climbed up onto the diver’s platform and Pat asked what was in the plastic bale I had brought up.

After explaining what I had found in the old boat, I cut the plastic open. We were all in shock as stacks of 100-dollar bills fell out on the deck! Lionel asked, “How many bales do you think are down there?”

“I don’t know. Fifty, maybe.”

“I need to call Mr. Lewis and tell him you found his diamonds,” said Mirana.

“Wait let’s think about this a minute. If we tell Lewis now, he will want us to head home immediately. We are going to need five or six days to get the remainder of those bales up, maybe more.”

“Why should we bring them up? Just call the Coast Guard and tell them what we found. Let it be their problem.”

Everyone just looked at Pat in stunned silence. A minute later she burst out laughing and shouting, “Got you! You guys really thought I was serious. Let’s count OUR money!”

The money had been wrapped long ago with rubber bands, but they were old and brittle and had given away when I had cut off the plastic. We scooped the loose bills into four equal piles and began counting. After we finished and added it all up, we had $100,000!

“How many bales did you say were down there,” asked Pat.

“I did not count them, but like I said, about 50.”

“That’s five million dollars!” shouted Mirana.

We were hugging and kissing each other when Mirana asked the question we had avoided. “Whose money do you think this is?”

For a minute it seemed to take the joy out of us. “From the way that boat is deteriorated, I imagine it has been down there 10 or 15 years. Look at these bills, they all have the small heads on them. The new bills with the big heads came out in 2013 so that boat has been down there at least 10 years.”

Lionel was right, as usual. Whoever was the owner of this money had long ago wrote it off as lost. No drug smuggler or cartel would be looking for us! The celebration was back on!