Interview: Guy de la Valdene
By: Marshall Cutchin
MC: WHAT WAS THE UNIQUE chemistry or alignment of the stars that brought everyone together in Key West in the early ’70s?
GDLV: What I might do, just because it’s easier for me, is to go back even a little bit even further than that. My story is very closely tied, first, to Gil Drake, and then of course McGuane, Harrison, Chatham, and Buffett, that whole group. My first fishing experiences actually started with Gil Drake. We went to school together in the late ’50s when his father opened up Deep Water Cay, which is the bonefish lodge situated at the east end of Grand Bahama, in 1957. Gil and I went to a great school called Graham-Eckes School for Young Gentlemen in Palm Beach, Florida. The reason that it was great was that there were 70 girls and 45 boys. And the girls were very pretty.
