I first visited Florida in 1980. My buddy Sonny had given me a tour of some of the beaches and parks and the thing that impressed me the most was the cleanliness of the bathrooms. I can't be sure if they were well maintained or just not used very often, but every one that I went into was spotless.
I moved down in the fall of 85 and started longlining out of Pompano beach. A few months later they were rebuilding the docks and our whole fleet fished out of Naples for the next few months. Naples was a lovely place and at the time had the highest per capita income in the country.
Some time in the mid winter a group of us stopped into the local diner for some breakfast. The guys went back to their boats while i decided to take a look at the Naples pier. I wached a guy at the end of the pier nailing some small drum so i sat back and enjoyed the show and the sun. Unfortunately my relaxation would be cut short as my insides started growling and nature called.
I knew I wouldn't make it back to the marina in time, so I stopped into the mens room on the pier. I figured no problem, never saw an outhouse in Florida I didn't like. What I found when I walked through the door was the most disgusting bathroom I had ever seen in the Sunshine state and to add insult to injury no door on the stall.
I ran off the pier and started jogging down the beach. A few snowbirds sunbathing, but no one swimming. I ran about 200 yards form the pier, kicked off my sneakers and took off my shirt and dove in. I swam out a ways, out of eyesight from the sun bathers, dropped my shorts and let loose. There's a first time for everything and this was my first "in the water expulsion". Any thoughts of secrecy were quickly dashed as the expectant log was no where to be seen.
Instead I had a bad case of the squirts and a brown stain rose up around me. Normally cool when the going gets tough, I started to freak out and tried to backstroke my way out of that cesspool as I was completely enveloped in ****.
Wouldn't want to swallow any tainted water accidently doing the breast stroke or the crawl.
My kicking only made things worse as I was completely engulfed in the brown water. I was panicing and can only imagine the look of horror that came over my face, I was swimming in ****.
I let loose again and repeated the performance as seemingly hundreds of little brown bits surrounded me
and I had hoped that I had distanced myself far enough away from the pier and beach that my frantic thrashing and discolored water would go unseen. While the people on the pier and snowbirds on the beach may have been oblivious to my plight, my actions had not gone unnoticed. The native gulls terns and pelicans came out of nowhere and from a distance this certainly could have been mistaken for a blitz.
These birds loved eating ****.
Who knew
The birds were everywhere first a gull then a tern and then a pelican all partaking in the happy meal. I had a fish eye view of this avian feeding frenzy and frankly the pelicans were coming a little too close for comfort. I was sure my secret was out, but I regained my composure and put some distance between me the birds and the chum slick. They hung around for awhile feasting on the little turds, then disappeared when the last nuggets were eaten and the sea was quiet once again.
As soon as I got out of the mess I threw on my shorts and switched from the back stroke to a freestyle and kept swimming up the beach. When I was away from the scene of the crime and no folks in sight I swam ashore and headed back to the marina. I'll never know for sure if anyone was the wiser but somebody had to have figured it out I changed into some dry clothes and went back later on for my shirt and sneakers.
You know, I never did fish that pier
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