SUMMER 2019 21
Fish’n Xpress
STRONG
V iolent winds and unprecedented storm surge
during Hurricane Michael obliterated the Port
St. Joe Marina and everything in the sheltered
confines of its basin. Nothing was spared. The
massive boat storage building, rated for winds
up to 140 mph, was reduced to a perforated
shell of twisted metal. Boats were upended,
capsized or sunk. Docks and pilings were ripped
from the sea bed and carried blocks inland as
raging Gulf waters tore through the town.
Secured in the basin – moored to the concrete
seawall and tucked directly behind the steel and
granite bulwark of Jetty Park – the 60-foot party
fishing boat Fish’n Xpress, was exactly where
Capt. Bill Little wanted her to be. “We were
ready,” Bill remembers. “She would have been
fine in any normal storm.” Unfortunately,
category 5 Michael was anything but normal.
When Bill and his wife, Cindy, first laid eyes on
the boat after the storm, they couldn’t believe
what they were seeing. The Fish’n Xpress sat high
and dry – over 200 yards from where she’d been
moored – at least 40 feet from the nearest water.
Not even their insurance company knew what
to do next. “Bring in a crane and try to float it?
Slide it in shipyard-style?” Several ideas were
tossed around. As it turned out, risk and liability
concerns dictated the doomed vessel’s fate. Old
Florida’s only party fishing boat, and one of
its most popular attractions, was cut apart and
hauled away in pieces.
“It would have been easy to
quit,” stated Cindy. “The boat
was gone. The marina was
gone. The whole area was
decimated. And on top of
all that, if we somehow
managed to get back in
business, would we even
have any customers?” While
Cindy wrestled with that
unanswerable question, Bill
was already searching for a
new boat.
He found it in, of all places,
Brooklyn, NY. She was called
the Captain’s Lady. At 50 feet
long, she was shorter than
her predecessor. She wasn’t quite as wide, either.
“But, she has great lines,” states Bill. “We may
not be able to carry quite as many fishermen,
but we’ll definitely put ’em on the fish.” Cindy,
meanwhile, was wading through the practical
realities. Securing the same dock space, their
only option, seemed like a battle that couldn’t
be won. Two parties were involved, the city of
Port St. Joe (sea wall or land owner) and the
St. Joe Company (marina basin or water owner).
“Getting that agreement in place took forever,”
Cindy recalls. “Without the city’s help, it still
wouldn’t have happened.”
With dockage secured, it was time to bring the
Captain’s Lady south. “You have to be nuts to
move a boat from New York in February,” Bill
said. “We went from 20° to °80, woke up with
the boat covered in snow, and covered 9 states
in 12 days before making it back to Florida –
and that was just getting to Jacksonville.”
The trip is a story in itself, with unforgettable
experiences along the way. “We spotted an
endangered right whale off the Georgia Coast,”
Cindy said, “and saw the damage Florence did
in North Carolina.” Hurricane Florence made
landfall just a few weeks before Michael, in
September of 2018. “It was a reminder that we
were not the only ones struggling.”
More setbacks awaited Bill and Cindy upon
their return. In Cindy’s words, “Additional
dock drama, delayed inspections and other fun
stuff,” but they forged ahead. Bill, deckhand
Levi, and crew outfitted, repainted and prepped
the new boat in an Apalachicola boatyard.
Aboard the newly minted Fish’n Xpress II, Bill
and Levi returned to Port St. Joe on May 13th.
Word of their homecoming spread quickly.
Web site and social media traffic spiked. The
reservation hotline – quiet for months – started
ringing off the hook. The Fish’n Xpress II’s first
chartered trip was on May 29th, just in time
to work out the kinks before Red Snapper
season opened. It went off without a hitch,
and Capt. Bill has been providing excited Old
Florida fishermen with tight lines and good
times every day since. Forgotten Coast Strong.
A SIGN OF THINGS TO COME
HARD AGROUND AND OUT OF COMMISSION
WAKING UP TO SNOW NORTH OF THE MASON DIXON LINE
SHRIMPER SUNK BY HURRICANE FLORENCE IN NORTH CAROLINA