Skymaster Down

Ran into a lot of these down in the Bahamas in the 70's. The natives would get paid in pot to bring fuel down to them in 50 gal. drums. The same natives would try to sell it to me cheap. One time, when I was hauling my boat in Man - o - war Cay for the Seventh straight year, they offered it to me for free, since they knew I would be back the next year and pay them from my profits then. I turned them down because the first thing the Coast Guard would do would take your boat away. The most famous plane down was in Normans Cay in the Exumas, it was made famous in the movie BLOW. I used to anchor there before the rich Columbian smuggler purchased it, then they had security with some mean looking dogs patrolling the shores. The Bahamian Navy along with the DEA would raid it a couple a times a year finding nothing. One time I was anchored about 8 miles south on the reef- covered shallow side (we liked to dive). At night, a crew and I took a break in the dinghy, and a few miles away heard some loud outboards and saw some spotlight in a cove on a small dinghy, they were loading up the contraband and speeding it up on the deeper Exuma Sound side. Still if they had seen us, they probably would have killed us, as those Cocaine Cowboys were viscious compared to the laid-back pot smugglers. So we got out of there as quickly as possibly hugging the shallow shores of the cays, to stay out ot their sight and depth hopefully. When we got back we excitedly told our Swiss Students (adults) about this event and one said "smoooglers" what is that?




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