ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, April 26, 1996 TAG: 9604260071
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-4 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: KEY WEST, FLA.
THE GOLDEN RETRIEVER who fell overboard has to be one of the swimmingest canines in the Keys.
It sounds like a fairy tale: A dog named Coconut Harry fell overboard, dog-paddled the rough Atlantic for miles and wound up on an isle of monkeys.
But the strange odyssey of the shaggy golden retriever appears to be true.
It started when the dog's owner, Naomi Simonelli of Cudjoe Gardens - about 20 miles north of Key West on the Overseas Highway - was out April 14 celebrating her 49th birthday aboard her trawler with a friend and the dog.
Coconut Harry was on the bow, looking out over the water as usual, but was put in the cabin when the wind rose and the sea became rough.
When Simonelli returned to the cabin for coffee, the dog was gone. ``We didn't discover it till we got to the reef, then turned around and started searching,'' said Simonelli, a substitute teacher at Key West High School.
She got on the marine radio; the U.S. Coast Guard, Florida Marine Patrol and the Florida Keys Marine Sanctuary joined the search.
``We searched till dark,'' Simonelli said. ``Of course, I was devastated.''
Simonelli papered the Lower Keys with posters of Coconut Harry and had radio stations broadcast a lookout for him.
For eight days, no word. Hope dwindled.
Then, on one of the oddest crumbs of real estate in the Keys, the dog turned up: Key Lois, entirely occupied by scavenging monkeys raised there for sale to research labs.
Workers on the island to feed the monkeys found the dog, collar tags jangling, 10 pounds underweight. The monkeys chittered at Coconut Harry, but otherwise they got along fine.
The worker remembered hearing about the dog on the radio, and Coconut Harry and master were soon reunited.
``It's a miracle - their finding him,'' said Simonelli, a substitute teacher at Key West High School.
Simonelli says she believes Coconut Harry fell off her boat at Nine Mile Shoal and swam about 5 miles to the island. Judging from marine life clinging to his shaggy beige coat, he might have been in the water for three days or more.
Simonelli will give a party at a Big Pine Key restaurant tonight for the Key Lois workers who found Coconut Harry. They have already declined a reward.
LENGTH: Medium: 53 linesby CNB