MARCO EAGLE

Author, sailor, actor: Marco’s Captain Tom Williams in screen adaption of his writing

Lance Shearer
Correspondent

Tom Williams already has his feet – barefoot and well-tanned – in two worlds, sailing and literature. The longtime Marco Island resident has is Capt. Tom Williams, who for three decades has skippered guests for sailing excursions out of the Marco Marriott, aboard a 9-meter catamaran.

He is also Tom Williams, published author, writer of three books including nonfiction and novels, with another on the way. But he recently dipped his toes into another world, the Hollywood of film projects, “let’s do lunch,” and studio productions. The new venture came about as a melding of his writing and nautical endeavors, when a television producer became interested in a three-part series he wrote tying historical pirates to modern day Marco Island, work that appeared in the Marco Eagle.

After an exploratory visit, producer Bob Asher and his eight-person team visited Williams on Marco Island for three days, filming scenes for the pilot of a proposed TV series set to appear on the Travel Channel. The theme is pirate treasure.

Artifact found by Tom Williams near Cape Romano.
Filming at the Snook Inn.
Les Bowen and Bob Asher with Bowen’s antique cannon.
Sailing off Marco Island to film the show.
Capt. Tom Williams with 'Paradise,' the catamaran he sails daily. An excursion boat skipper for the Marriott who is also a published author, Williams is having one of his tales adapted as a television show for the Travel Channel.

In “The Lost Treasure of Cape Romano,” his three-part Eagle series, Williams told the story of pirate “Calico Jack” Rackham, who sailed the Spanish Main in the early 1700s and – maybe – buried a fabulous treasure of gold coins on the beach on Marco Island. Williams hypothesized the spot was right in front of Quinn’s at what is now the Marriott, convenient if digging for treasure brings on a thirst that needs to be quenched. The Marriott’s new Kane beachfront tiki bar, with dozens of varieties of rum, might also be particularly to a pirate’s liking.

The tale was certainly to Asher’s liking. He is the son of Elizabeth Montgomery, who achieved fame as the nose-wrinkling witch of the classic television series “Bewitched,” and he came to Marco along with another scion of a famous family. The forthcoming series has a tentative title of “Caribbean Treasure,” and the stars are Philippe Cousteau, grandson of legendary underwater explorer Jacques Cousteau, and his wife Ashlan Cousteau.

Presumably, the group will visit exotic locations where legends of lost treasure are to be found, mixing historical lore, adventure and sightseeing. It sounds like a pretty sweet gig, and remember, the first tropical paradise the group came to, to film the pilot and sell the rest of the series, was none other than Marco Island. Along with the Marriott, the production crew visited other island watering holes including the Snook Inn. On land, they traveled in Williams’ 1997 Ford Ranger pickup truck, wired up with cordless microphones and GoPro cameras, after Asher decreed it had just the look they wanted for the production.

They also sailed extensively off the coast of Marco, and then filmed underwater scuba-diving (sans Williams), although no actual pirate gold or doubloons were found. While sailing, they came too close for comfort to a typical summer thunderstorm, and that and the stars’ reactions to it were captured for the show as well.

The group did visit islander Les Bowen, who has two antique cannons in his yard, pulled from the waters in the Florida Keys and believed to have sunk with the Margarita, sister ship to the Atocha which Mel Fisher attained fame for finding, in the storm that sank the Spanish treasure fleet of 1622. The crew then headed to the Keys for additional filming.

“I learned all kinds of things” in the course of the shooting, said Williams. “I never knew what that clapper thing was for,” the device that enables synchronizing sound and pictures at the beginning of each scene. “And everything we did, we did over and over and over. Bob would say, “that was good, now do it again.”

Williams’ story about treasure formed the basis for his novel “Lost and Found,” which tells a tale of murder and intrigue surrounding a GPS-enabled search for sunken gold, featuring rogue scientists, a beautiful dive master and a salvage expert.

“I gave a copy of the book to Bob Asher, and I’d be delighted if someone wanted to make a movie out of that,” said Tom Williams. The network, he said, wants to use the book cover artwork for the television series.

With his permanent tan and tousled good looks, he should fit the bill of what Hollywood is looking for in a treasure hunter, so having appeared on camera in “Caribbean Gold,” he may find that, one way or another, he actually has struck gold.

Williams’ new novel, “Unspeakable,” a story of stem cell research gone dreadfully wrong, is “99 percent finished,” he said.