Chapter 3

We decided to leave before breakfast so we could use the lighted path to the city and were just getting on the big boat when Herb showed up with another load of anchors. Buddy yelled for us to go on, he would get Rae and her girls to help. The lane was still lit when we started but the lights were going out by the time we reached the gap at Hicks Caye a distance of about 10 miles. If not for a large sandbar with mangroves it would be a straight shot from Hicks to the city. It got a bit shallow in a few places and we really needed a deepwater port on this side of the city. Carnival cruise lines had a port just to the south of the city and the Port of Belize was also located there and since I didn't see any huge ships running around our area I guess they entered the port from south of the city.

The girls headed to the bakery and I headed to Lupitos to check on the canvas for Brende and Twili's taxi boats. As I walked in the canvas shop Lupito yelled, "Hey Levy how is it going"

"Ahh Lupito, it's hard times in the land of plenty"

"Bullshit Levy, you got the best looking women in the country, plenty of money, and you bitch about it. I don't know about you boy"

"Have you got the canvas for the girls taxi boats finished"

"Yeah, over here"

"Where in the hell did you get canvas that color"

"They picked it out of the supply catalog"

"Pink and green"

"The book says it's Floresent Magenta and Floresent Lime"

"Damn, I hope they paid you for that shit"

"Nope, they said you sold them four boats complete"

"I'm going to kick them little shits butts for them"

"Yeah, well as they say, good luck with that"

I paid their bill and Lupito and his helper started loading them on my boat. I went to the bakery to eat with the girls. They talked about the food and guessed that Julie and Rita were doing a good job. I went out to the boat and got the brief cases, they probably weighed 25 or 30 pounds each. I thought they might look a bit heavy when carried but it was more likely my imagination. We went waltzing into the bank like we owned it and Heidi told the girl we needed to speak to Mr. Lewis. She went to his office and he came out and waved for us to come on in. I gave him the account numbers and he picked up his phone and had two people come in and get the cases and told them to put 1.5 in each account. We talked about the islands and the buoys, bakery, farm, and the dive business. He asked if I was interested in selling the motor shop but I told him I was looking to invest, not sell, and if he ran across any real deals to let us know. He asked if I would be willing to go into competition with Herb on dredging and I told him no. He said he was going to have to forclose on a guy that had been working the Dangriga and Placencia area. He thought the guy just didn't want to work because he knew there was plenty of work to be done. I asked about the equipment and he said he would e-mail a list to me. The guys brought the cases and the deposit slips back along with a stack of loose bills. Mr. Lewis stamped and signed the deposit slips and handed them and the money to me. Fourty two thousand over the 3 million. And he accused us of not being able to count. I told him that the guy I sold the business to had counted the bills, we just counted the bundles. He looked me straight in the eye and said sounds like something a drug dealer would do to see if the other person was honest. I told him I didn't know anything about that but if I ever had to deal with a drug dealer I would be sure to count the money. I told him that I had heard that a drug dealer near Chetumal had tried to kill a couple of girls and wound up dead along with a couple of his friends. He just said "yep, dangerous business, be careful as he didn't want to lose a customer that invested in the country. And by the way, think about that dredge equipment, I need to clear that up as I made him a loan with the equipment as collatoral"

When we left both girls said they didn't think Lewis was buying my story. They were more surprised when I told them that I didn't think he ever had, and he was a sure enough smart person and we would do well to work with him any time we could. I would show the list of equipment to Herb as soon as I got it and see if we couldn't help Mr. Lewis get rid of it.

When we got to Caulker Buddy and I used the dock crane to unload the canvas and had a good laugh at the colors. I checked my e-mail to see if Linda sent anything. Then I got into my online banking and transferred 500 thousand to Linda and sent her an e-mail telling her she now had more money to spend and make it count. I received an e-mail immediately and thought it was her answer but it was a list of equipment from Lewis. It was a long list but it didn't mean much to me so I thought I better take it to Herb. I didn't take him the first page that was a note from Lewis and the fact that it would take 175K to get it.

I went to change out of my uniform then went to see if I could find some lunch. I set down with Elke and Heidi and when Herb and his crew came in I told him to come join us after he got his lunch. I let him start eating then showed him the list. Right away he started cussing and said he had made an agreement with that son of a bitch to take Dangriga south and he would take the City and north. I asked him what it would take to buy all the equipment on the list and he said the guy claimed to have 800K in equipment and he didn't doubt it, and that was why all of his shit was made from parts straight out of the junk yard. I asked if we could build a deepwater port with it if we had it and he told me that he thought that model of Mudcat had a maximum depth of 20 or 22 feet which was no where near being deepwater. I told him that when he dredged the river bottom he said he could go down to 35 feet. Then I got educated on types of dredging. He could stick a suction hose down that deep and pull up mud but he couldent make it smooth and we were talking about an 8" suction hose so he was limited to 8" wide per pass. The Mudcat had a horizontal reel or rototiller type thing that would fold down from the center of the barge and clean an area about 8 or 10 feet wide. What he was using was just a bigger dredge like the ones on our treasure boat to which he had added a sweeper head like a vacum cleaner to make it clean a wider path. Then he went into the 20 X 60 foot barges with pumps on them they could haul a load then pump it out to wherever you wanted it. He said if he had that equipment he could build islands in a fourth of the time. I asked about some of the other stuff, he explained that one of them was a self powered dredge with about twice the capacity of our gold dredges. There were some flat top barges 40 feet long with loaders for hauling pilings and equipment, and then a shorter barge with a driver on it to pound in the pilings. Two tow boats and a long list of other stuff.

I told Herb we were going to get it as soon as I talked to the bank. We would work out our partnership on the way to get it. I had Herb go with me and we called Lewis and I told him I would take the dredges and to go ahead and transfer the money from my account. We decided to go get it tomorrow and he told me he would get a Federal Officer to go with us in case of trouble. We would meet the Bank Rep and the police at the L Team dock in the morning. Herb said he would send all but three of his men on to the island to work tomorrow and he would meet me at the dock also. That would make 7 of us making the trip.

The girls wanted to work on the buoys tomorrow and they would get Rae and maybe Rachel to replace me. It sounded more like they were going to have a good time to me but I didn't tell them what I thought.

I left as soon as I ate breakfast and ran the big boat pretty fast. I was surprised that everyone was there eating doughnuts and drinking coffee. I filled the tanks on my boat and went in long enough to get a fried pie and a coke and get everyone loaded. I showed them where the bathroom was and the kitchen and got turned around and hauled ass. It was almost two hours to the yard where the equipment was. About 40 miles

The guy was there and looked like he was still drunk from the night before. I gave the list to Herb and he went with his men to start getting it loaded and lined out at the ratty dock. He had trouble getting one of the tow boats started but it ran good once it fired up. They had enough fuel to make it to the city and we decided to unhook and send in the two tow boats to get fuel. The bank guy and the policeman left with them and Herb and I talked over the partnership. He said if I would let him use the equipment to finish the islands and me turn over the equipment to the business that he would give me 60% of all dredge and piling work but not enclude his steel fabrication yard. I asked if he had all of his equipment on the job and was I to get 60% of it also. He said I could have 60% of it but everything but the barges Bobcat, and tow boat were junk and he was just going to drag it all back to his steel yard. I told him to write it down and sign it and I would get it typed up and copies made for us both to sign. And just that quick I was in the dredge business at a larger percentage than I would have settled for.

We got the tow boats hooked back up and Herb went with them and I went to see how much work my buoy team got done. About a mile out I started seeing Buoys. They had placed extra buoys at the end to make a sort of funnel to get people to line up on the path. I found them almost back at Hicks placing the last few buoys. They did as much work in one day as I had done in two. I helped Elke and Brende up the ladder then Heidi decided to ride with us. Twilia was driving their boat and took off before we even got in the cabin. They were yelling at me to catch her so I caught up with her but didn't pass her because my boat could kick up a pretty large wake when it was pushed. They wanted to know where all the stuff was and I told them I didn't have to haul anything, it was all on the barges which were behind us someplace.

I asked how it went with the buoys and they said that Clawdy and Rae switched places several times but everyone else did the same jobs as before and they had it down to an art. I asked them if they could do without me tomorrow and start the San Pedro lane. Yep, and did I want to continue the red on the mainland side and ... Holy shit look at that boat. The first of the new taxi's was setting in front of the shop. There would be no doubt in anyones mind that this taxi was a Wizard Taxi. They hopped off and tied me up and I went over to look at the taxi. Even the seats were pink and green. Damn I hope it doesn't make anybody sick riding in it. The girls liked it, they were all hopping up and down and having a good time. I told them I needed to check my e-mail and went to the office

Sandy said "Did you see the taxi"

"See it hell, it's loud enough you can hear it"

"Yeah, maybe a bit on the bright side. You need to call Linda"

I called Linda and she said that she talked to Gloria and Mandy and they want to go in together and put in a distribution warehouse in Mobile Alabama and buy 1,000 boats with 600 of them being 28 foot cats and the others the survival boats with maybe a transition point on the survivals changing to pleasure boats. She wanted 20% off delivered to the Mobile warehouse. That's two years total capacity of the enlarged L Team shop in Port Isabel. She said her new building would be up and going in 45 days and it would take Gloria about the same amount of time to get their warehouse bought and ready. I told her to get it all in writing with a 30 month contract with payment on delivery for the first 1,000 and then both sides to have an out if either wanted it. She said she was going to start with two trucks and four drivers. They would drive a trip and be off a trip. If that didn't work another truck would be cheap enough to add one or two.

She had some job adds in Brownsville and Harlingen, and with a few employement agencies. Leeann had hired a Tool Maker and she was working with him trying to make every job simple and the same every time. They were building a lot of fixtures for routing and wood assembly. Since there were not that many different parts they could work on the hard jobs first and make them as fast and easy as they could get them. She wanted to cut the build time in half from the old days without going to solid fiberglass molded hulls. If she could, we were all going to be rich at the end of the first contract. If I hadn't told the girls that they could take a trip to Texas, I would just stay away and let Linda and Leeann deposit my share for me. They damned sure didn't need me. As it now stood, I owned their company 100% but I knew if that didn't change I might still be the owner but they would be some other place building boats and I would own an empty building. I told Linda that everything sounded good to me and I would be up to see them in a few weeks.

At dinner the main topic was the Wizard Taxi which led to a lot of the customers learning about Lena's Island and some more islands in the making. When I was asked anything about it I just told them that all the islands belonged to several others and I no longer had anything to do with them. Uschi set with us and talked to Heidi and Elke in German for a few minutes and then left. She almost always set with her dive students so I asked what Uschi wanted. They said that Lena asked her if she might want to take over the tour boat along with a new girl that Lena had found. I immediately asked where she "Found" the new girl. They didn't know but Uschi told them she was from Columbia and spoke spanish and english. Lena hired her and she had gone home to get her belongings and quit her job. Ushi had worked the tour boat several times when we had German speaking customers. I can see where diving every day would get old. I think Lila and Cristi had been born in the water but some of the others were wearing down and could probably use a change or I would lose them. Chuck was another forever diver, those three had been at it a long time and had enough money saved to retire but I didn't think they ever would. None of the three were interested in management, they just wanted to dive.

I need to check with Sandy and see how many available divers we had and also the number of drivers. Lena has hit me pretty hard, she has Brende, Twilia, Abby, J-Bird, and Uschi. Abby had an instructors rating but just didn't want to teach, but that was five instructors that I would be losing.

I told the girls that I needed to take care of some business tomorrow and if they didn't want to place buoys they could do something else. They all wanted to finish the buoys, and they were going to work on the San Pedro lane.

The next morning I talked to Sandy about the available instructors and she said she would still have nine that were certified instructors and we were running five boats total. She might have to find a couple more girls to start driving and training to be instructors but Lena had told her that she would be surprised if all the girls she started with would stay as it was going to take a certain type of personality to like working there and she was not keeping anyone who didn't like it. Some of them might wind up here. She said she thought it was still a bit early to worry a lot about it. I told her if she saw Lena to tell her to get her new girls to the Doctor for a check up and anything else they needed because she would be running in circles pretty soon.

I took a boat and went looking for Herb. I tried the island first and they said he was at Chapel Caye with the ne dredge. I found him on one of the new tow boats watching the dredge and I threw him a line and climbed on the tow boat. He was as proud as he could be with the new dredge. I asked him why he was not running it and he told me that the guy running it had operated that very dredge in Dangriga for several months and could really get the work out of it. He said he was going back over all he had done with the old dredge because he had left the bottom uneven. I told him if it was easy dirt, to get it all.

I asked him why nobody had bought and developed the north end of the Hicks Caye since it was bigger than Caulker in actual size. He said it would take way over a year with what we had to move enough dirt and sand to make it usable. I said well partner what does our crew do when you don't have a job going on and he said they are just out of work. I said I was going to try to get it and make it into usable land and sell it for many millions of dollars. His answer was, another dredge, maybe two, and several more hopper barges, bigger is better. It will cost us a bunch but islands are expensive pieces of dirt. I told him that people might start bitching about us sucking up a lot of dirt and sand so we were going to be good ole boys and dredge the new boat lanes to a minimum of about 14 feet and we would need a place to dump it. Between Hicks and the city were miles of shallow water that caused a lot of boats to get hung up. I told him I wanted to keep one crew on it full time and as soon as we got it solid enough for a bobcat loader, I would buy one to use there full time.

I had no idea who to contact about buying Hicks Caye but I figured that Lewis at the bank would know. I would need it securely in my name for any of the other parts of the plan to work. I went back to Caulker and called the bank and told his secretary that I needed an apointment that would take about 30 minutes to discuss a business deal. She came back to the phone and told me that Mr. Lewis said to come in anytime and he would make time for me. I told Sandy where I was going and left for the city

I got right in to see Mr. Lewis and he thanked me for taking the dredge equipment and he felt fortunate that he didn't lose any money in the deal. I told him I might be in the market for more of the same if he knew where to find it. He doubted that there was any more within 500 miles of here. I layed out my idea for Hicks Caye and dredging the boat lanes around the city and all the way to Caulker. I told him it might be a one to two year project and I was not sure how much of the island that we could make useful, if any. We talked about where I might find more equipment and did I have the money to back a two year plan. I told him I had it but I wanted a line of credit in the amount of 3 million to convince whoever I had to deal with on Hicks Caye that I had it. He told me that Chapel was worth about 45 million and we speculated over what another island of at least that size would bring. Then we talked about the ocean current washing away what I built. I told him that it would be ringed with pilings almost from the start and I planned a long tapper from the land to the water. The deepest water around it was 12 feet and most less than 6. As long as we didn't try to stop the current flow, the waves in shallow water were not a problem, and all of that of course was what I read on the internet. I really didn't know shit about it.

He called someone in the government and told him that the guy who owned the L Team Marine operations and who was installing the lighted buoys, at no cost to Belize, for boat lanes to Chapel, Caulker, and Ambergris was in the office and we were discusing what to do with some dirt that would need to be dredged out of the lanes to make them safer and we wondered if it were possible to dump it on Hicks Caye. He told him it would be dirt, sand or whatever I dredged up. They talked some more and Lewis told him he might be able to get me to buy Hicks if the price was right, and then nobody could complain about me dumping mud on it. Then he told him to tell them when he asked that I had bought the lighted buoys, installed them, and now I was doing dredge work at no cost to the government to acomplish what they should have done years ago. The guy was going to call him back. I smiled and almost laughed, and then I did laugh when he told me I was not the only one who told bullshit stories. I told him I would be making another deposit in the next day or so to buy equipment with.

I stopped at the bakery to eat and I visited with the girls in the motor shop for a while and we discussed how to put brush guards on the motors of a 28' catamaran. We agreed that it could be done but it would knock the hell out of the performance. Since performance was not going to be an issue I told them to get started on it. They wanted to know what it was for and I told them about buying into Herbs business and that we needed a brush boat that could go straight into a mangrove bush and mow it down. The next question was what was going to cut them. I hope a modified sickle bar mower will do it but I'm going to have to get with Herb on that since I don't know where to find one.

I took the long way home and looked over Hicks Caye. I didn't remember ever going around on the west side of it. There was a lot of it that was just mud and looked like it was flooded at high tide and mud at low tide. The rest of it couldn't be seen for the mangroves. I had looked at Google Earth but it didn't help a lot, it just showed green and brown areas with a few patches of water. Oh well, if I could get it for cheap, I would make it work. I went pretty slow on the way back to Caulker looking at first one thing then another with not much in mind. I saw Herb towing one of the new barges to Lena's and stopped to watch it pump the mud out of the hopper onto the island. He had a lot more control over where the dirt went. He said it took about an hour to fill it and almost one and a half to empty it. If he had another one he could keep them moving. I asked him where I could get an old sickle bar mower and he said almost anywhere that had used farm equipment and that he had several at his place. I told him my idea for a mower boat and he said I would tear up my motors. I asked if he thought I could shield them with a guard and he thought it possible. With that on my mind I went on in to Caulker.

When I got there I was told to call Mr. Lewis and that he said it was important. He told me that I could get everything north of the gap where the boat lane went through for 200K and he had tried for 10 minutes to talk them down to 175 with no luck. I asked him if he could handle the deal, for a fee of course, and he could so I told him to give them the money. Then I called William, my banker in Port Isabel and transferred two million to my account here. He wanted to know what I was up to and I told him I couldn't afford to buy one of the islands so I was going to build my own. He told me there was a lot of activity at the boat shop and I told him we should be putting some very serious amonts of money in his bank real soon.

As soon as I hung up Sandy said that the coast guard had left a boat and the man wanted to know where Elke was so she told him she was installing buoys between here and San Pedro. He said he was going to go talk to her about the boat. I walked down to the boatyard to look at it and Rachel had it raised out of the water on the slings and they were looking at the bottom. They had a cradle setting next to the shop to set it on. I got out of the way and watched them move it. Rachel set it on the cradle and moved the crane back to the giant car port. Rae and Andy came out of the shop and Andy said he would do the first search and evaluation and he sure missed Linda. Yep, we needed another Linda to keep us straight on if it would work or not, damn why. I knew I was not smart enough to figure out the things that she could. I told him I would put an ad in the local paper for a female nautical engineer and see if we could find one. The hand signal he gave me said more than words ever would. Oh well, I better go look for some equipment.

I think I found what we need but I wanted Herb to look at it before I called the people. It was located in the Florida panhandle and the price was not all that bad. I heard the dive boats come in but the buoy crew was still out. It was about time to eat when they pulled in and told me they were tired, then left the boat with me and headed to the dinning room I filled the tank and moved it out of the way then went to eat.

Heidi told me they would have been in a half hour ago but Eddy had to talk to "EL" about the boat he brought special for her. Elke looked at me and said that they were all jealous because he gave her a 36' cabin cruiser and didn't even look at them, much

. I looked at the other girls and asked if they got a cabin cruiser, no?, well now you see how it works. Be nice to Eddy because he will bring Elke some more boats and she will share the work with us. Then they wanted to know what I had done all day. I told them not much talked to Herb, Talked to Lewis, bought an island.

Brende wanted to know "What island"

"Hicks Caye"

"That ain't an island it's just a bunch of weeds growing out of the mud"

"Yep, but it's gonna ba a diamond someday. I bought it from the gap where the boat lane is, north"

"You can't do anything with that"

"Well, stop and think of how there was even less where Lena's island is going to be. I can make 4 or 5 islands the size of Chapel, and it's worth 45 million. So, I figure I can make a little on it"

That must have given them something to think about because they were quiet for almost 30 seconds before they started talking about at least 3 things at the same time. I was able to find out that they had finished the lane to San Pedro on both sides and wanted to wait until Lena's island was finished so they could figure out how to best connect things with the hub somewhere in the triangle of Caulker, Chapel, and Lena's. I told them waiting sounded good because I needed my sidekicks. Clawdy wanted to borrow the treasure boat and said she would get Rubi and Dani to go with her to look at the hole in the bottom of the sea. I made her promise not to go without them. We went out to remove the anchor seat and put the suction pumps back on it.

I was going to hunt down Herb after breakfast but he showed up with the rest of the anchors, looks like we are going to have at least a hundred lights, buoys, and anchors left when the project was finished. He told me the new dredge was a mud sucking son of a bitch and he had the Chapel harbor in perfect shape. We still were not sure how Wainwright was going to get his boat to the harbor, but the harbor was deep enough for it if he found a way in. There is a gap in the reef almost even with the south end of Caulker that's about 75 feet deep, but we would still have to dredge about a tenth of a mile to connect with the boat lane that we did not have dredged as yet. Then we decided that we needed to do that anyway and use buoys to mark it. It would make life better for a lot of people, so that's where Herb would start today. We looked at the equpment I had found on one of the dredge equipment websites and Herb picked out the Mudcat that was almost the same model that we have. I wrote it down and we looked at the barges and decided that it had to be 100 feet or less to work for us. They had new and used pumps and he pointed to one and said it was the same as our barges had. I told him I would see what I could do and he left.

I called the equipment dealer and told him who I was and where I was and asked if I bought some equipment could he get it to us. He said if I bought enough we could work out a delivery but unless it was 100K or more I would have to call a shipping company and arrange it myself. He had a Mudcat MC-15 for 120K and a IMS that was rebuilt top to bottom and would cut to 22 feet deep, he wanted 220K for it. I asked about hopper barges 60 to 100 feet and he asked me what I was going to use them for. After I explained our area and the work we did he offered two 30 X 100 foot hopper barges with pumps and hoses for 75K each. He had two deck barges 20 X 60 in good usable but ugly condition for 20K each. He would have to charge me to put heavy waterproof tarps on the hopper barges or the waves would sink them on the way here. Then we added a few other things. By the time we were through I would get it all delivered to Belize for the amazingly low price of only 600K with a five day delivery. I told him my banker would contact him this morning. I called Lewis and gave him the list and the amount including delivery along with the guys name and phone number. He would handle it from there.

I got Elke and Heidi rounded up and grabbed a hand held GPS unit. I went to the middle of the gap in the reef and Elke wrote down the reading then we went to Chapel. I pulled into the harbor and tied us up. We found the Morrisons eating breakfast and I told him about the harbor being finished and then explained that Wainwright would have to bring his boat in through the gap and that we were going to have to dredge a path for him to get it to the harbor. It was a total of about two miles and if he didn't stay between the buoys, I would quarantee he would be stuck in the mud. I gave him the GPS reading for the gap and told him another 20K would cover it because we were already going to do some work on the boat lane, this was just to connect him to it. He didn't see it as a problem so we finished our coffee and left.

The girls wanted to know when we were going to Texas and I told them I wanted to wait until the new building was complete because I had seen all of the old one, and Linda would just put us to work, and she don't cut no slack. "She's the kind of girl you want working for you, you don't want to work for her if you can keep from it, because she's going to get at least a hundred percent out of you" We had reached the dive shop and decided to go see how Clawdy and the great treasure hunt was going but Twilia came out and stopped us. They had to go to the big airport and pick up some girls from Colombia and wanted us to go and keep watch over their taxi while they went to get the girls. I tried to tell her that the pink and green along with the ocean was bound to make me sick, and nobody would want to steal it, but by then Brende had joined her. They were dressed in T shirts and shorts so I guess they were ready to go. We loaded up and they insisted that to christen the Wizard Taxi's first voyage we all had to sing We're Off To See The Wizard. Then they wanted us to do it in 3 part harmony. It's a tough life being around these girls.