They hired us out in Las Vegas to be the dealers on their newly renovated ship. They turned a Swedish Hydrofoil into a so-called "luxury Yacht". They did the work in Port Everglades. We were all on the same flight from Vegas, and they drove us from Miami to Port Everglades to see the ship. It was 3 weeks behind schedule.
Most of the ship builders were from all over the world. All of the dealers spent three weeks lounging at our hotel in North Miami. It was The Carillon Beach hotel, and it was owned by, I guess You would call it "The Syndicate". The investors were really cool, and all wealthy. Anyway, I made friends with Danny, a very tough guy, and Danny was the driver for "Vinnie".
The investors were losing money by the hour, so Danny was working on the ship, and I asked him if I could help. Danny was thrilled to have me offer, so while the other dealers were back at the hotel in the hot tub, Danny and I were down inside the ship bondoing bulkheads, and doing anything to speed up the process. I was having a blast, just working on real ship.
The investors cam by every few days, and they noticed that I was the only dealer working on the ship. I would find out later that my efforts would pay off. It turn out that Danny was a very powerful person, and he was in charge of controlling the dealers. So three weeks later, we were finished enough to take th ship on its shakedown cruise from Port Everglades to Key West, and I was invited.
We set sail for Key West one night, an there was a 30 knot wind ourt of the East. The whole way down the coast, the ship was rocking and rolling. There were 13 people on board, and 7 of them discovered that they were prone to sea-sickness.
It was bad, nd I felt really sorry for them. The ship was rolling so much that the Craps table roled across the floor, and craps tables are very heavy with low center of gravity.
Finally, we made th curve along the Keys, and we were headed downwind. About that time, we lost an engine. n hour later, we lost the other engine. We were dead in the water, with no A/C. About that time we discovered that Mikey The Cook, recently completing a ten year stint in a Federal Prison, had loaded the refrigerator with five 2 litres of soda, nd we had no potable water. The temperature was in the 90's, we had nothing to drink, and we were a long way from Key West. Grundstead Marine, the owner of he ship, droppe off two engineers, but still nothing to drink. We were REALLY thirsty, an floating dead in the ocean. About five hours later, we had one engine rolling, so we finally limped into Ket West, and we made a great entrance. The highly publicized gaming ship came rolling up to Mallory Dock with black diesel smoke belching from one smokestack. Vinnie, the enforcer, jmped onto the dock, and was greeted by some Key West authority, I saw Vinnie reached into his pocket and peeled off a nice pile of hundreds to pay for our smoky ship to remain at Mallory Dock through the evening's Sunset Celebration.
We tied off, and Danny, Captain Dan, Gary Mills, the Chief Operation's Officer, and I headed for the first bar that we could find. I think it was my soon-to-be friend Alan's Casa Marina, a Mexican Retaurant, and outside bar in the shade. When we were dead in the water, all 13 of us on the shakedown cruise were standing around talking, and I said that I had an image of a Bottle of Coron with a chunk of Lime Frozen in the neck of the bottle. Captain Dan and I had become friends as I was working with them finishing the ship for those weeks, and he said that the Coronas were on him for as long as I cared to pound thenm down. That first beer was, and remains to be the best tasting beer that I ever had.
As far as my work on the ship, the benefits to me began rolling in. I was paid double th going dealer rate. The other dealers got to choose two room mates to live with in the house that they rented for us. While they were choosing up room mates, I had my choice of bedrooms, and the single bed remained, as they took out the stack of bunk beds. I had a room to myself. The other dealers piled in a cramped station wagon to get down to the ship every night. Danny and I took th limo down, and went out on the ship every night as it left the dock for Sunset at Mallory Dock. While the other dealers stood around waiting for th ship to dock, Danny and I dined on the buffet in the dining room, and watched every sunset from he comfort of the air conditioned dining room, or went up on the top deck for the view. I miss those Key West sunsets a lot.
So that was the beginning of The Princess of the Waves in Key West. That was the craziest time in my life. I became great friends with not only Captain Dan, but also Captain Tony, a legendary figure in Key West. That guy had a LOT of cool stories bout the Hemingway days. It was said that Hemingway spent a lot of time at Sloppy Joe's, but in reality he enjoyed his passion for drinking in Captain Tony' bar. When Hurricane Floyd hit Key West in the Summer of '87, I was at the awesome candle-lit hurricane party at Captain Tony's. That's it for now, but Key West will always be my favorite place in Florida, and I was a fool to ever leave. Temporary insanity I guess. I have a lot of cool "syndicate" stories, but none for now.
But, Vinnie made it clear that if we ever stole from them, we would be Ballyhoo. For those who don't know, Ballyhoo is a name for sharkbait. And just to make sure that we didn't steal, or take illegal drugs onto the ship, every Saturday morning we stood in line for our weekly lie-detector test. No lie. Zit was a great job, but if You screwed up, it could be a serious mistake. That's it for now. OUT.
I was a craps dealer on a gaming ship out of Key West in the 80's. The ship was a converted Norwegian Hydrofoil. She was named "The Princess of the Waves". They pulled the skis and added a keel. It was all aluminum, so it floated like a duck, but every day I'd go down to Mallory Dock and do some painting or wipe her down. They needed a guy to cast and tie off the bow lines, because they were just short handed. The first day we went out, there was no one one the dock. So, in my tux, I was on the dock, and threw the lines back to the ship. Then, they sailed away, and I jumped on the Pilot Ship, and on the way out of the channel, we pulled along the Princess as we were doing nine knots, and I had to jump five feet out and six feet down to get onto the gangway to the ship. All of the crew and guests were watching from the top deck. They all called me James Bond that day.
