Pirates of Key West

High Times on the High Seas in the Roaring 1980s

What happens when someone with a love of ocean sailing gets asked to smuggle tons of marijuana into South Florida on sailboats? If you’re a fun-loving young guy who’s always game to try anything, you say yes without a thought. 

Pirates of Key West is the true story of author Kelly Ryan Harriger, who found himself pulled into the seductive, illicit, and exhilarating world of smuggling in the wild and woolly 1980s in Key West and the Caribbean. Although he’d planned to just do one trip for the experience and some quick money, he was easily lured into more trips with the promise of more money and the autonomy to pick his sailboat crews. Over the course of two years, working for a man who was financed by the Colombian cartel, he progressed from running marijuana shipments from the Caribbean to Key West to transporting cocaine from Miami to his own distribution network in Key West. The lifestyle took its toll, and he found himself drawn deeper into daily drug and alcohol abuse.

After being busted on his third trip to Jamaica, he knew the smart thing to do would be to retire. It’s what a smart man would have done, but the author wasn’t ready to quit until he’d reached the end of his rope. The chronic drug and alcohol abuse finally took its toll, and as his life began to spiral out of control, he finally found the strength to walk away and start a new life.