The Donald Dillon Story

1990

Written 4/ 2011* 1,558 Words

By Howard Yasgar

In the 1990's, my wife Katherine and I came to the Florida Keys almost every weekend.

We were staying at our Town House Condominium at Executive Bay club located at

mile marker 86-1/2, which means it is 86-1/2 miles from Key West.

Because they didn’t allow us to keep our boat at Executive Bay, we kept it at Perdue Dean

Marina, which was about 4 or 5 miles North of our Town House.

At the time, our boat was a 23-foot center consol Mako inboard.

We paid a monthly fee, and we could call Perdue Dean on a Friday, and the boat was in the water, at the dock, waiting for us on Saturday Morning.

The Marina had a big jumbo forklift that would lift the boat off an indoor rack which was in a big storage building. The forklift would gently carry the boats out and put them in the water.

Perdue Dean Marina had a floating dock system made up of big square rubber blocks about 2 cubic feet each and they were all linked together to form docks for about 15 boats.

We always asked them to put our boat in one of the last slips, which was close to the parking area. That way, we could unload our fishing gear easily.

The Marina employed a dock boy who helped the Forklift Operator and he tied the boats up in the boat slips.

The Dock Boys job was tending to the boats and Customers, which included rinsing the boat off with fresh water after they came back in from a day on the Ocean.

Every few months we would see there was a new face, as each Dock Boys quit, having found

A better paying job..

One day there was a thin suntanned Cuban fellow in his late 20's, tying up the boats, and he

introduced himself as Ferny Fernandez, the son-in-law of the owner Pete Perdue.

Ferny was all personality and very attentive.

The owner of the Marina was Pete Perdue a well-known former fishing guide.

We were told that one of his former fishing customers was named Dean, and he had financed Pete in the purchase of the Marina, thus it was named Perdue Dean.

One of the other Customers told us that Ferny had knocked up Pete Perdue’s daughter and

That was why Pete had given the unemployed Ferny a job as Dock Boy.

On some weekends, Pete Perdue’s daughter would come to where our boat was docked.

She probably came to see her father and to see her husband Ferny.

We met Pete’s Daughter several times at the Marina. She was very pretty, and very pregnant.

She told us that she met Ferny at the Holiday Isle Tiki Bar, which pretty much said it all.

It was obviously not a marriage made in heaven, and one day Ferny was gone, never to be seen again.

The new fellow that replaced Ferny looked familiar, but I couldn’t remember where I knew him from.

One day he was helping us tie up our boat and he introduced himself as Donald Dillon, the son of captain Gary Dillon of the Charter Boat Heidi Baby.

I knew Donald’s father Gary very well, as I had chartered his boat the Heidi Baby several times over the years.

I had even chartered the Heidi Baby on my son Jacks 21st birthday as a present.

I had also used the Heidi Baby when my good friend Neil Metcalf came to Miami from Australia.

But the last time I had chartered the Heidi Baby, the original captain, Gary Dillon was not aboard, and one of his other sons was the acting captain.

The son also told me that the boat I was on was not the original Heidi Baby as the Original

boat had been confiscated by the Coast Guard.

I then learned that captain Gary Dillon was caught smuggling Marijuana and lost his License

to charter, as well as the boat being confiscated.

So, when I met Gary’s son Donald, I told him that I had fished many times with his father.

Over the next several weeks we always talked with Donald, whenever Katherine and I came to take our boat out.

I mentioned to Donald that I was a Notary-Public in Florida and had performed quite a few

marriages.

In May of 1990 Donald announced that he was getting married and asked if I would perform the wedding.

He said it was to be at Sunset on the back of the boat the Heidi Baby.

I told him that the cost to do the wedding would be .25 cents, and he agreed.

The wedding date was set for June 30, 1990, and we were to meet at the Heidi Baby which

was docked on Charter Boat Row at Whale Harbor Marina.

When the date came, Katherine insisted that I dress properly for a wedding which meant a suit, white shirt, jacket and tie.

I complained as much as I could, I said nobody in the Keys wore a tie, but finally I gave in and dressed .

We went down to the Heidi Baby about 5:30 in the evening, assuming Sunset would be in a

few minutes.

When we got there, there was no one in sight, so we sat down on a bench and waited.

The temperature must have been about 100 degrees and, there I was in a tie, Katherine was

also, in semi formal dress.

Finally, we saw someone and asked where everyone was. They said that Sunset wasn’t for

another hour. I was already soaked with sweat.

Katherine and I decided to drive home and have a cold drink and cool down, and change my shirt as our town house was just a few miles from Whale Harbor.

We returned in about 45 minutes, to find 50 to 75 people aboard the Heidi Baby. They were everywhere, on the bow, in the salon, and up on the tower, some were hanging off the

off the top of the Tuna tower.

Here we were, Katherine and I all dressed up, and the rest of the party were half naked, with

no shoes on and probably no underwear.

I was more than a little nervous, but the wedding went off OK and I finally took my tie off,

with no complaints from Katherine.

The reception was to be at the home of Captain Gary Dillon, Donald’s Father.

Gary Dillon and his wife owned a nice home on a canal in the Kahiki Harbor area of

Plantation Key.

When we got there, Gary was already putting Clams on the barbecue, and I got to talk to him.

I asked Gary what he was doing and he said he was working as a plumber. I didn’t want to

ask him anything about the smuggling charges.

Donald and his wife, the former Kathleen Delaney gave me a check for .25 cents which I still

have.

We noticed several months later that Donald’s Father’s home in Kahiki Harbor was for sale, but by then, we had lost track of the Dillon Family.

I assumed that Donald’s Father Gary was in jail.

Around 1998 we had a visit from one of our friends Tom Murray from Dover Delaware.

Tom was in the Military Jeep parts business and traveled to Guatemala several times a year.

When in Guatemala, Tom Murray liked to go to a small town on the ocean, where he

chartered a boat to go sail fishing.

Tom always mentioned to us about how he liked going fishing from a sleepy little town

that was lost somewhere on the Guatemala coastline.

The only thing Tom said didn’t like about the town was a loudmouth American captain, wearing lots of gold jewelry, and his charter boat was named Heidi Baby.

Tom confirmed that it was my old friend Captain Gary Dillon.

It appears Gary had sold his home in the Florida Keys and had hidden in Guatemala to avoid going to jail.

Tom later told me that he heard that Captain Gary Dillon had died of Kidney Failure in Guatemala.

We have never run into Donald and Kathleen Dillon, Hope they are still married

.