Tuesday March 14: Bambics and Fishing for Birds

What a fun three days with Buck and Donna Bambic! Friends who also left the cold winters of Cleveland and moved to the more relative warmth of Raleigh NC. 

They were on a road trip and we were fortunate enough to be on the list of places they wanted to come - the warmth of Marathon FL. Well, not quite the warmth they were looking for - Donna loved my wool socks that daughter Wendy made for me. What's not to like!!

And we played Euchre - with the men having overall the upper hand but I think we were handicapped by the cards - should have pulled out another new deck :-) I mean how many times do you get a hand with all trump?

Donna and I had our moments but I had to admit we never quite made it up to speed.

Steve and Bambics went to Key West for a day - too much walking for me so I stayed back and guarded the boat ...

The primary target was the Hemingway House. They have been to Key West before but had not gone on the tour of his home and the pretty unique cats with 6 toes. Donna was reading a book about his wife (The Paris Wife???? Not sure) and thought the house/museum would be interesting. For info: click here.

There was a very nice display of Hemingway's cruiser that he used for fishing off of the Florida Keys with the name of Pilar. A full size model with full access is on display at the World Wide Sportsman in Islamorda - about 30 miles east of Banana Bay. It's a fun visit!

On Saturday, even with the not so great weather, we were able to ride down to the Island Grill for lunch on Saturday. It's only about a 45 minute ride along the bay side - just about the perfect distance for an afternoon adventure :-)

A waterside table- perfect!

And although there were no green flashes to be seen, the sunset most nights was wonderful with so many colors.

Of course on the way back from lunch Steve decided he should put out the trolling rods. Never know when something of interest might be lurking along our path !

Sure enough - we were on the flybridge and heard the "ziiiing" of line being pulled out of his rod - it must be a BIG one!!

It was a big one alright - a big COMORANT!!! This is a very common bird that dives under the water to catch it's food (fish).

Apparently it came up under Steve's line and became tangled. It wasn't hooked just tangled up.

Once onboard and wrapped in a towel (it REALLY wanted to take a bite out of Steve), the line was unwrapped and off it went - quickly diving under the water. Well, that was certainly a first :-)

Bonus: they came bearing gifts - all very nice but one was perfect: Looks like a good place to hang it to me!!!