Scuba King

Frank151: So what brought you down to Miami?
Lee Turcotte: I grew up in orphanages. I had a horrible childhood, horrible. But one year I came down to Miami with an uncle. Then I got drafted into the Korean War. I went to Korea and fought, then I came back to Miami. I got a job with the Veterans of Foreign Wars as a bartender.  I was drunk all the time! Horrible things had happened in Korea, terrible things. Well, I quit that job and got a job as a lifeguard on Hollywood Beach. Then I joined Miami Beach Fire Rescue. It was after the Korean War and WWII, lots of money in Miami, all the movie stars were here, all the Art Deco hotels were built at that time.  It was Miami’s first heyday and during that time I got to experience the best travel, the best people, the best art, the best music. It was a great time.

F151: How’d you get into being a scuba diving tour guide?
LT: Not a lot of people had boats down here back then. I had a boat and guys at the bars would send tourists my way. I’d take people out diving. My scuba diving business went from here and then just branched out. I started traveling around to all the dive stores and became friends with everyone. Diving was just starting. The first island I picked for a tour was a primitive, unknown little island in the Caribbean that no one had ever heard of. You know what that island was? Grand Cayman.
F151: But you were still working at the firehouse when you started giving diving tours?
LT: Yeah, I’d go running every morning in the parking lot and this little old guy would walk by with his dog. It was Meyer Lansky! He was so humble, so smart. So I’d be running in the morning, he’d be out with his little dog and we’d sit on the sea wall and talk. We became friends. God, was he smart, that guy. You could talk to him about anything except how many people he’d killed. I knew Murf the Surf, too. He’s the guy who stole the Star of India, the world’s largest sapphire. Yeah, Murf the Surf. He was just an associate, not a friend. That guy killed two girls in Whiskey Creek.  De-bowled them, threw them in the creek with cement blocks around their feet — and one of them was still alive. But Murf wasn’t a sophisticated criminal. Not like Lansky.
F151: Why do you think so many gangsters were in Miami at that time?
LT: Miami was the place to be! Everybody was here — Al Capone lived on Palm Island. I’m walking down Collins Avenue one day and here comes this guy in a red convertible and it was Ed Sullivan! You could talk to the movie stars back then. People were nice. Not like today with all the hangers-on.

F151: You got a lot of turtles on that wall.
LT: I caught all those turtles by hand. You won’t see another wall like that anywhere in the world. I guarantee it. (Ed. Note – It’s true, it is now illegal to hunt tortoises.)

F151: You’ve been around the world two and a half times this year. You’ve been everywhere. Why do you always come back to Miami?

LT: The temperature. I like cities, but I like Miami for the warm weather and crystal clear water, and because you can take a plane anywhere from here. Miami is the best city in the best country in the world.

F151: What’s coming up in the future?
LT: I’m starting a new kind of dive tour. Travelers will be able dive and work on one of the world’s biggest treasure and archeological discoveries of our time. No one’s been able to wreck dive a treasure and archeological site before. I’ll be signing people up starting May 2007.

For more info on Lee Turcotte’s diving tours, he can be reached at 305-757-8785.