TAFFI FISHER-ABT << MEL & ME << HOME

Taffi Fisher-Abt  

Mel and Deo Fisher’s youngest child and only daughter, Taffi, has been diving for as long as she can remember. But it was not until 1985 that she became officially certified as a scuba diver.

 “Once we found the motherlode everyone wanted to dive,” she said. “So we had to make the rule that everyone needed to be certified – including me.”

But Taffi’s first dive instructor was, of course, her father. The mother of four remembers getting ready to make a dive with Mel while wearing a silver bikini.

 “Dad said I shouldn’t wear the silver bikini,” she said.

Mel’s hesitation was not because he thought Taffi would be mistaken for treasure, but that the glint of light from her bathing suit would attract barracuda.

The watchful fish never bothered her, but Taffi remembers several run-ins with the jagged-toothed barracuda. She also fondly remembers an encounter with a mermaid aboard one of her father’s treasure boats.

 “They were filming a commercial trying to raise money and had a bunch of models in bikinis on the boat,” she said. “One was dressed as a mermaid with a full tail and everything.”

The spectacle was a memorable one for the fourth grade girl, but “my mom probably didn’t like it,” Taffi said laughing at the memory of her father surrounded by bikini-clad women.

Her memories of life as a treasure hunter are mixed with those of being a regular adolescent growing up in Key West.

The family lived on a houseboat at Houseboat Row for about eight years, while the treasure-hunting offices were on a galleon behind what is now Half Shell Raw Bar.

After-school adventures awaited the girls aboard the galleon, where tours were given and treasure was displayed and discussed.

Taffi remembers the part of the galleon that had been the crew’s quarters. Hammocks were strung in the crew’s quarters while mannequins representing a slumbering crew rested in the hammocks.

 “Stacy and I would dress up like the mannequins, get into the hammocks and scare the people on the tour,” she said ticking off the other adventures that an afternoon on the galleon afforded.

The girls would also try to climb the mast to the crow’s nest despite rotting lines, and amuse themselves on the galleon.

 “I learned to give tours and sell coins at a very early age,” she said. She also learned to paint at a young age.

“When I was really bored on the galleon, Dad would go buy 10 galleons of paint and say, ‘Paint the galleon,’” she said, remembering that the colors Mel bought were not always ones that would be found on an authentic Spanish galleon. “He would say, ‘It doesn’t matter, these were on sale,’” Taffi said.

She also remembers going to school in Vero Beach and Key West, where “I was definitely the only one who got to come to “Show and Tell” with a gold bar,” she said. Although not all of her classmates were always impressed. They had overheard their parents call Mel Fisher a con man or an unrealistic dreamer.

“Because every person Dad ever spoke to, he tried to get them to invest,” Taffi said. “But it was usually easy to impress people with gold bars.”

Taffi is still impressing people with gold, while living in Sebastian, Fla. She is the mother of four children, ages 3, 6, 16 and 18.

Taffi Fisher is the area operations director for the Mel Fisher Center, which is a branch of the operation headquartered in Key West. She oversees the operations of a gift shop, museum and conservation lab. Taffi also is a member of ProSea, a shipwreck exploration group and acts as a liaison between the state and shipwreck salvagers.

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