ST. JAMES CITY, Fla. — Hundreds of sunken boats, vehicles and other titled properties are filling up large lots on Pine Island after being fished out of the water. 

The two large lots sit right off the island’s main drag, Stringfellow Road. As you drive down the dirt roads and behind the trees lining the main road, you find dozens upon dozens of boats, cars, trailers and more sitting in the dirt. 

“A lot of these vessels were underwater, sometimes they were on top of each other,” said Tyler Marks, Executive Vice President of Operations at RJ Gorman Marine Construction. 

They were fished out of the water in the months following Hurricane Ian. Many sit in navigable waterways, acting as a danger lurking beneath the surface of the water. 

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“I’m a sailor, so we have to be very careful of what’s hanging below the surface of the water,” said Daniel White of Bokeelia. “There are boats that have been just abandoned and are an actual threat. They’re a real nuisance.”

Every day more and more of those big dangers are being pulled from the water. They’re then brought to the lots by Marks and his crew. 

Some will sit for a while, but others will head straight to the chipper. 

“We’ve probably only fed maybe 30 through the chipper so far,” Marks said. 

That’s out of the more than 300 boats they’ve been able to fish out of the water so far. Not every boat pulled from the water is destined for doom though. 

“At one point in time, everything behind me was for sale,” Marks said. 

For sale? Some of the boats here are destroyed and damaged beyond repair. Yet insurance companies sent them to online auctions in an attempt to recoup some of the losses from Hurricane Ian. 

With that in mind, not every single boat will sell. For the dozens still sitting on the lots this week, they’ll likely meet their fate of being destroyed and chipped. 

“If they don’t reclaim it, it goes next door to the — it gets fed through the terminator,” Marks said. 

That’s not a nickname, it’s the real deal. The boats are busted up, fed through a big green machine named the Terminator 3400, and then spit out in tiny little pieces. 

All of that happened in St. James City. 

“Oh good. Gee. That’s great news. I’m being a little facetious there,” said White. “Was there some sort of a contest or something?”

There wasn’t a contest, but rather enough space for the work and enough space to let the boats sit, sometimes for weeks and other times months. 

“Why they’re staged here is to allow for a safe environment for adjusters or investigators with the state to come out and actually perform their inspections in a safe environment,” Marks explained. 

It’s not just boats that they’re bringing back above the water and disposing of. They’re dealing with any property that requires a title in the state of Florida. 

“I mean we’ve had golf carts, trailers, covered trailers, 54-foot shipping containers,” said Marks. 

They don’t shred those, rather they sell them off to scrap yards. 

While the shredding yard looks rather empty right now, don’t be fooled, they still have hundreds of boats they’re still working to fish out. 

“By the time we finish everything in the mangroves, we’ll be beyond five, I would say 500,” Marks said. 

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