Saturday March 21: In Search of Mr. Grouper!

Finally.

The weather Steve had been waiting for arrived for real on Thursday. Off we went - back to Looe Key reef to see if we could find the giant grouper again.

The water was crazy calm - and supposed to stay this way for the next 4 days or so.

Once we were tied to a mooring buoy, Steve was off searching.





Mr. Grouper was not to be found anywhere but Steve did get some neat underwater pictures - thanks to Cindy for the loan of the camera!! - including a couple of angelfish and the shark that swam underneath him while he was trying to take a picture of another shark!

Time for a late lunch - then Steve looked out and saw George and Nancy on Jenna Star headed our direction! All of the mooring buoys were taken so they just tied to us. Which is an indication of how calm the water was! They decided it was just too nice to stay in the harbor.

Steve and George decided to actually dive instead of snorkel so that was nice as it was the first time this season for a real dive.

Mmmm... think Steve really thought no one would see him behind this elkhorn coral??

Off to anchor for the night (Thursday) at Newfound Harbor. Time for a dinner out at a restaurant on the water about a 30 minute dinghy ride up the waterway.

The best part of the night was the dessert on the flybridge: key lime pie!!

Well that and the sunset of course.

Plan for Friday: more snorkeling on a small reef for us - another Looe Key dive for Jenna Star. Meet for the night somewhere on the bay side.

Snorkeling was great - fishing was just ok. Sadly Steve had a very nice mackerel on the line but when he got it close to the boat, it decided it just didn't want to get caught just yet. No pictures of fish today!

Biggest catch of the day though? I managed to get Steve's trolling line caught on a crab pot!

Man that line just reeled out like crazy - we thought it was really a BIG something. Guess it was ....

I suggested just cutting the line. I might have suggested just throwing the pole overboard based on the response I got. Guess it was one of his favorite lures :-)

We settled in for the night near East Bahia Honda Key on the bay side. Winds were predicted to be basically nonexistent for the night and the next day.

Kayaking was definitely in the picture for the morning.

Sunrise was so crazy beautiful - neither one of us could stop taking pictures. And it just kept getting better as the sun rose higher in the sky.

The water was so calm.

Definitely needed to check out the island closer.

So easy to see the fish under the water. Just amazing.

Almost couldn't tell the water from the sky .......

Yesterday's Dream in the distance -

Back home tonight at Banana Bay .....