A Charter Boat story.......

[Bob Wright]

Recent query concerning carrying on a charter boat reminded me of this story I heard years ago, maybe 1982 or so.  This was told to me by  friend of my son-in-law's.

This friend, and his wife lived near my daughter and her family in Stuebenville, Ohio. He decided to go deep sea fishing, taking his wife and dad along.  They chartered a boat at some Virginia seaport, and made the trip.  Getting ready to go out, he started to place a cooler of beer aboard.  The captain asked what it was, and when he told him beer, the captain told him he didn't allow beer on his boat.  My friend, Jeff, shrugged it off and said they'd find another boat.  But the captain relented and allowed the beer aboard.  As they were underway and making their way through the coastal islands, the captain gave Jeff two dollars and told them they needed a loaf of bread, and he would stop at a nearby island where there was a convenience store and for him to go buy the bread.

They stopped and Jeff went as directed.  As he entered the store, he saw a man sitting at the bar, cleaning his fingernails with a switchblade stiletto.  Jeff went back to get the bread, and the knife wielding man followed him, waving the knife threateningly. The man uttered something he could not understand, and Jeff reached into the waistband of his pants and drew his Colt Python, which he always carried.  He threw down the two dollars and backed out of that store.  Jeff told me the captain seemed surprised to see him return, but that was the end of that.

Jeff told the story later to another fisherman, and was told the captain had set him up to be killed.  That island was inhabited by a group of people who kept to themselves, spoke Elizabethan English, and were not friendly to outsiders.  Jeff's wife was present when he told me this story, and she corroborated what she knew of the story.

 

A couple of years later, Reader's Digest carried a story about that island, and told of many people who had disappeared going to that island.

 

For whatever it's worth,

 

Bob Wright 

Edited June 16, 2018 by Bob Wright

[res308]

Think I might have had to charter just one more ride with that same captain!

[m16ty]

That is some crazy stuff right there. 

You really never know out there, but we always try to find some background info on the boat and captain before we charter a trip. The worst I ever had was last year out of Orange Beach. Fishing was good, and the captain and mate were ok, but the boat was kind of a pile of junk and broke down out there. To add on top of that, it was a rough day with about 4' swell. Now I've been on some rough water before, and it's not too bad, if the captain can keep the boat heading into the waves. When you are out there broke down, and bobbing like a cork, it can get really rough when you loose power. After about a hour, they managed to get the boat fired up and we made it in.

[Oh Shoot]

On 6/16/2018 at 1:45 PM, Bob Wright said:

Recent query concerning carrying on a charter boat reminded me of this story I heard years ago, maybe 1982 or so.  This was told to me by  friend of my son-in-law's.

 

Pretty tall tale, and I'd assert only that. Almost assuredly related to Tangier Island.

Along with the quaint speech patterns there, disappearances perhaps inspired and conflated with the long ago mystery of the Roanoke Colony (and Roanoke Island, named for it not too far away down NC waters).

- OS

 

Edited July 2, 2018 by Oh Shoot

[mikegideon]

Yeah. I had to kill a guy on that island once. Lopped his head off with my trusty Spyderco.

[Omega]

15 minutes ago, mikegideon said:

Yeah. I had to kill a guy on that island once. Lopped his head off with my trusty Spyderco.

Well, there goes one S.

[monkeylizard]

That reminds me of when I was working a summer job at my buddy's "Island Times" convenience store. There I was, minding my own business, probably doing something mundane like cleaning my fingernails or something. This guy comes in, clearly having had a few too many beers on his charter boat. He kept mumbling something about "bread" and flashing 2 dollars to everyone in the store. I figured he wanted to know where the bread was so I walked him to the bread rack. Crazy drunk pulled a gun on me!

 

True story.

Edited July 4, 2018 by monkeylizard

[Bob Wright]

On 7/2/2018 at 10:51 AM, monkeylizard said:

That reminds me of when I was working a summer job at my buddy's "Island Times" convenience store. There I was, minding my own business, probably doing something mundane like cleaning my fingernails or something. This guy comes in, clearly having had a few too many beers on his charter boat. He kept mumbling something about "bread" and flashing 2 dollars to everyone in the store. I figured he wanted to know where the bread was so I walked him to the bread rack. Crazy drunk SOB pulled a gun on me!

 

True story.

Can you give me a dateline and description of the man?  Sounds similar to the story I was told?

 

Bob Wright

[Oh Shoot]

47 minutes ago, Bob Wright said:

Can you give me a dateline and description of the man?  Sounds similar to the story I was told?

 

Bob Wright

 

[mikegideon]

1 hour ago, Bob Wright said:

Can you give me a dateline and description of the man?  Sounds similar to the story I was told?

 

Bob Wright

Won't do you any good now. The guy got his head lopped off

Edited July 3, 2018 by mikegideon

[monkeylizard]

 

Edited July 4, 2018 by monkeylizard

[Bob Wright]

16 hours ago, mikegideon said:

Won't do you any good now. The guy got his head lopped off

Well, this was not the man you encountered.  The last I heard from him he was living in Arizona.  I had met him at my daughter's home in Ohio.  He was employed in the steel mills there and doing gunsmithing on the side.  He was doing some bluing some of J.D. Jones barrels at the time.  It was he, and several others, that introduced me to the Thompson Contender.  Started me on the smaller stuff, .30-30 on up through the .45-70.

[mikegideon]

2 minutes ago, Bob Wright said:

Well, this was not the man you encountered.  The last I heard from him he was living in Arizona.  I had met him at my daughter's home in Ohio.  He was employed in the steel mills there and doing gunsmithing on the side.  He was doing some bluing some of J.D. Jones barrels at the time.  It was he, and several others, that introduced me to the Thompson Contender.  Started me on the smaller stuff, .30-30 on up through the .45-70.

He didn't even have a scar?  

[monkeylizard]

I got nuthin'

:smh: