St. Joe Diary

Wednesday morning, the 4th of July, I rode down to what’s now Jetty Park.

As I sat there and watched the people go out in their boats on a beautiful bay, my thoughts returned to the days when I would be called to go search for the people who did not return by dark.

Also when I would pilot large oil tankers to that dock to discharge their cargo into the tanks that were located where the marina is now.

After World War II, some people were buying outboard motors and boats to go out fishing and boating on the bay like they do now.

The motors at that time were not as reliable as they are now. They would break down and leave the boaters stranded.

They never told anyone where they were going, and back then there were not any radios as there are now, and no Coast Guard or Marine Patrol to go find them.

After dark, some wife or mother would come to my house crying, wringing their hands, saying, "My so and so went out in the boat and has not returned. Will you please take the pilot boat and go find them?"

They never had any idea where they went. I couldn’t say no so I went out. It got to where people would call and say, “Are you the man I am supposed to call when someone goes out in a boat and doesn’t come back?”

My reply would be, “I guess so, everyone else does.”

John Robert Smith owned Smith’s Pharmacy, located on Reid Avenue, where Sisters Restaurant is now.

He had a large outboard boat and motor that his sons Bob, Edward and Nap used to scuba dive from.

The family also had a beach house at St. Joe Beach.

One day, about sunset, John Robert called me and said Bob and Leroy Gainous had gone out diving on the lumber ship and had not returned.

He said it had started lightning out that way and they were concerned about them.

I told him I would go out and try to find them; that if they came in, for him to build a fire on the beach and I would see it and then come in.

I got Ralph Branch, the pilot boat operator, and we went out, stopping at every buoy and platform on the way. When we reached the lumber ship, they were not there.

About 1 a.m., we saw a fire on the beach and returned to our dock. When we arrived, there was John Robert. He said Bob was in but Leroy was still out there.

Bob was afraid his mother would be worried about him so he swam three miles to Mexico Beach.

I told John Robert when it got daylight when I could see I would go back and get Leroy.

During the night, word had spread along the beach that they had not returned, and some women contacted the wife of a colonel who lived in Mexico Beach.

The colonel got a crash boat dispatched from Tyndall Field to come down to join in the search.

They shined their search light the rest of the night and when daylight came, they found Leroy asleep in the boat and towed him in.

That’s the way it was done in those days before radios, radar, GPS, the Coast Guard and Marine Patrol.