Wednesday February 6: A Trip to the Bay Side

So the weather gods finally said it was time to take a trip to a key on the bay side - sounded good to us!

Steve was all spiffed up in his new UVP 50+ shirt he received for Christmas (thanks Wendy and Matt!!) and was sort of ready to go.

A couple of things first though.










We said our goodbye's to John and Collen who had been our neighbors for the last month. They are from Ohio and brought their 32 foot boat down by trailer! Because of the winds, there were only a couple of days that they were actually able to leave the dock. So they are headed to the St. Johns's River in southern Florida - hopefully the winds/weather will work better for them :-)

The work on the mast and boom continues.

Steve wanted to get a second coat of primer on both of them before we left so he first lightly sanded and then wiped down both pieces.

We found a very nice place 10 feet from our boat where we could hang the mast and boom to make it easy to sand and paint them.

We should be able to do the first coat of Brightside tomorrow!

After 2 hours we arrived at our anchorage at Horseshoe Key about 2 pm. It's a relatively short 16 miles on the Bay side so very calm - even though a bit cool as the sun was not out.

Of course the kayaks were the first thing off of the boat! Even though the wind was relatively light (10 mph from the northeast), the best kayaking was going to be near the island of mangrove trees.

We first have to drop the dinghy into the water so the swim platform is accessible Doable with the dingy up but so much easier with it down!

Off we went to explore the key :-)

It was a really pretty area with the water very clear. Not too many fish though - several barracuda and schools of smaller fish.

Lots of birds - just a really pretty area.

The island of mangroves was really two island with a small split of water between them. A tunnel of mangroves connected the two.

How much better could this get?

Steve continued the 2 miles around the island - meanwhile I decided to go a little further and head on back to the boat.

It was a GREAT decision on my part when I saw how far away from the boat I actually was!!

The boat is circled in red - can you see it???

I made it safely back as Steve continued on around the island of mangroves.

No sooner was he back to the boat did the fishing pole come out! What could you possibly catch in 7 feet of water??

Surprisingly lots of stuff!!

Many small fish of course. Mostly grunts (kind of like perch) only quite small.

One larger fish though that we ended up keeping: a spotted sea trout. Steve found it to be a great appetizer :-)


I was quite content to pull in the little guys. They fight great and I don't have to clean anything this small :-)


The rest of the evening was very nice as the winds calmed down and there was no wind by the time we went to bed.

It was movie night though so we watched "Outdoor Vacation" with John Candy. We really like his movies.

Sunset was great although we thought we might be seeing the sun set over water - which would mean the possibility of seeing the green blip.

Instead, the sun set over the island of mangroves to our west. We did spot the blimp "Fat Albert" as the sun set. It's circled in red in the picture.

At first we thought it was just a cloud but Steve was totally unconvinced. Guess he was right - go figure :-)

The stars were amazing - no lights around to diminish their brightness.

And the sunrise - thanks to Steve again - was just as wonderful as the sunset.

The idea was to head out to one of the reefs to snorkel if the wind was right so we set off early. I raise the anchor using the button for the windlass. Steve is at the front of the boat using the fresh water washdown to rinse the rope, chain and anchor.

All usually works well - especially when Steve hand feeds the rope/chain splice through the windlass. One of the thing we need to address ...

As you can see, it was a pretty calm wind day.

As we headed out onto the ocean side, the wind seemed to change a bit. The waves were about 2 feet with the occasional 3 footer. We drove through several patches of rain - some fairly heavy - but not bad enough to keep us from continuing to fish.

Steve was trolling while I focused on keeping the boat meeting the waves head on and avoiding the numerous crab pot buoys.

It was a successful trip with 2 keepers. One a spanish mackerel and one cero mackerel. He also caught a nice grouper but they are out of season.


Regardless, it was a good day for fishing. I didn't take any pictures of the catching as I was preoccupied with keeping the boat headed into the waves and hanging on!! We decided to skip the snorkeling at the reef ...

Once back to our dock, it was time to clean the fish - Steve started it for me but I finished since it is of course my job!

Steve spent a couple of hours cleaning the boat REALLY well as both of our boat neighbors were gone for the day so no problem with overspray :-)

Yesterday's Dream hasn't been so clean in a month or more!! Good job Steve :-)

John and Daisy arrive Friday afternoon so we have a few things to prepare for their arrival. We're really looking forward to them joining us :-)