History
Early History
Christened as "Soft Touch", Calusa was built for a South American arms dealer. She was captained and crewed and often sent to locations all throughout the Carribbean and central and South America. The owner would arrive and have his yacht available for him.
The owner was an avid fisherman and Calusa was outfitted with a fighting chair on the center of her back deck. Stories have been told of this era when fish caught would completely cover the side decks and aft deck.
Collision at Sea
Around 2001, on one of her Central American expeditions, the captain and crew were preoccupied fishing when a large steel fishing seiner (asleep at the wheel) collided with Calusa's Starboard beam; at the corner of the pilothouse, caving in her bullwarks and wrecking the corner of the pilothouse.
Calusa survived the impact and ran under her own power back to Fort Lauderdale where she underwent a $250,000 refit to repair the damage.
Seized!
Allegedly, the arms dealer had dealt with a number of unsavory clients. On one trip to Panama, the Panamanian government issued a warning to her master. "We know who you are and we don't like who you sell your weapons to. Come back to Panama again and we will seize you vessel". Calusa departed but business dictated that she return a year later. As the government promised, she was seized and sold in Florida, only five years after being built and thousands of miles under her keel.
Mid Life
Her second owners purchased Calusa to be used specifically for pleasure. The sailed under red flag of teh British Virgin Islands. They were California based and purchased a home in Fort Lauderdale to keep Calusa as their East coast pleasure.
Again, Calusa was always captained.
Grounded
With her second owners, she completed a significant portion of the great loop, making her way into the center of the country.
She also made dozens of trips to the Bahamas and through the Caribbean. One one such trip, she became grounded on a remote Bohemian Cay. Calusa spent more than a week on the coral and sand. Guests aboard commented that they "were stuck hard". They had to ration water (since the water maker would continually suck-up sand); they also had to live with the list she developed as the tide fell. Eventually, a powerful tug arrived to pull her off the reef and back into open water.