Any Day Now

A couple of week ago friends of mine who had just came back from Taboga, A little island off the Pacific coast of Panama,told me an interesting story. It seems they were in a bar on the island and the owner was the spitting image of a friend of ours that was lost at sea some years ago. They asked her if she had a sister from Key West but she said she was an only child and she has never been to Key West, except for her red hair they said she could have been her twin.

This was the first time I thought about my friend in a long time, so here's her story. Meg Fizer was a cute little blond woman who was a 6 pack boat captain that loved to take people out to the back country for snorkeling and dolphin watching.But the real reason she went there is because she had an old document from the 1700's that told about a buried treasure on one of the islands.Every chance she got she would search those mangrove islands. She would pull away from the dock and yell "any day now". 8 years ago we had a hurricane come through the back country and created a small island,well it was only a sand bar but it stayed above the water surface even at high tide.

One Keywester a guy named Bruce thought he could claim it for himself . He put a flag on it and named it Bruce Key. The National Marine Sanctuary said he couldn't claim it because it was in the sanctuary. Bruce said it wasn't there when the sanctuary was made so he thought he could. The Sanctuary hired a scientist to create a computer model that proved all the sand that made the island came from the sanctuary and only moved around a little and was in there all the time.

Meg was hired to take the scientist around on her boat while he did the survey. She asked him if she gave him weather history for the last 200 yrs. could he show her what the islands looked like back them. He said yes it would be simple.

A couple of weeks later Meg walked into the Breakfast Club at the Schooner Wharf Bar, slapped a $100 bill on the bar, said the drinks were on her,got on her boat, yelled "any day now" and sailed away. Later that afternoon a storm came in and Meg never returned to her dock. The Coast Guard, Marine Patrol and private boaters spent 5 days searching for her but didn't find her or her boat.

It's a sad story that my friends reminded of but if you're ever in Taboga look for the bar and tell the owner Key West said hello. P.S. the bars name is HOY ES EL DIA.