Florida waitress returns to boating after generous restaurant regular gifts her a 26-foot Shamrock

Cindy Brown, a 51-year-old waitress at the Catfish House in Hobe Sound, Florida, is back on the water and enjoying every minute of it. A longtime boater herself, Brown was surprised last year when a regular customer — an elderly businessman who prefers to remain anonymous — gifted her a 1990 26-foot Shamrock center-console boat. The boat arrived equipped with a T-top, a 350-hp Ford Indmar inboard gasoline engine, and a full suite of electronics.

“I absolutely love it,” Brown said during a phone interview with Soundings from aboard the Shamrock. “It’s 80 degrees, I have a few lines out, and life is good.” A lifelong boater with a U.S. Coast Guard captain’s license, Brown has a deep connection to life on the water. She describes boating as part of her heritage—“the sea is in my blood”—and remembers growing up around boats in Michigan, where her father owned everything from Chris-Crafts to Boston Whalers.

Brown moved to Florida after a visit in 1974 convinced her she never wanted to return to snow and ice. Over the years she captained an array of vessels for other people, including a 77-foot Hatteras and a 61-foot Buddy Davis, and earned a 100-ton captain’s license. She once owned a 25-foot Angler, which was destroyed in 2005 when Hurricane Wilma dropped two large trees on it while it sat on a trailer in her yard. Without boat insurance, Brown lost that vessel and, for a time, could not afford to replace it.

Her benefactor is a regular at the Catfish House who often brought his elderly parents to the restaurant. Brown and his family struck up a friendship; she checked in on them and offered support. When he learned of her love for boating and the loss of her Angler, he decided to give her the Shamrock — a generous gift that included radar, GPS, VHF radio, and a fishfinder. “It has pretty much all the electronics you would want, except for a stereo,” Brown said. “It holds about 250 gallons of fuel. The engine is the original, but it’s only got 400 hours on it. It’s practically brand new.”

The boat had been kept at the donor’s other home in Pennsville, New Jersey. He offered it to Brown about a year before it arrived in Florida. A local resident arranged to tow the Shamrock from New Jersey to Florida at a deeply discounted rate, and a handful of friends and customers pitched in to help prepare the vessel for sea.

Brown described the moment she saw the boat for the first time as astonishing. “I remember when I saw my boat coming around the corner and just being floored at the size of it,” she said. The Shamrock is a heavy, solid boat, weighing roughly 9,000 pounds, and Brown appreciates how well it handles local seas. “I’m out here with one- to two-foot waves and she just slices through them.”

The boat did require some work after its winter storage: Brown spent months repainting, pumping out old fuel, and troubleshooting starter issues. Because it had been properly winterized, much of the major maintenance had already been handled, but volunteers and local mechanics still donated significant time and labor. “Everyone has done so much, donating their time to get this boat out on the water,” Brown said. “Two guys out of Port St. Lucie got the bugs out of the starter for me and a lot of my customers have been so helpful.”

News of Brown’s good fortune spread beyond the restaurant. In November her story was featured in an ABC News segment and on InsideEdition.com, and she even received a call from Ellen DeGeneres about appearing on the show. “She called at the restaurant and I thought it was some kind of a prank,” Brown recalled. The attention brought local pride and more goodwill toward Brown and the Catfish House community.

Brown doesn’t know the exact market value of the Shamrock, but similar models are listed online at around $30,000. Rather than keeping the boat solely for herself, she wants to give back. She plans to take people out on the water who’ve never experienced boating, to bring her parents — who now live in Jupiter Inlet, Florida — out for outings, and to explore a potential partnership with the Make-A-Wish Foundation to help fulfill wishes for children facing life-threatening medical conditions.

For now, Brown delights in cruising the waters between her hometown and Jupiter Island with her 18-year-old Labrador at her side, watching sea turtles and fishing when the mood strikes. She’s already chosen a name for the boat: the Octopus Lady, inspired by a gold pendant she has long worn that depicts an octopus clutching a pearl and two emeralds. “I’m so thankful to be out having fun again,” she said.

This article originally appeared in the March 2009 issue.