Thursday February 21: Anchoring out with a Spectacular Sunset

The low winds prompted another trip out for a couple of nights - not far. Like 10 miles so we could anchor near East Bahia Honda key. By the time the sun set last Friday, there was barely a ripple in the water.



This had to be one of the best sunsets we've ever seen in the 10 years we've been doing this! We were anchored with Randy and Cindy on Love You More. They were anchored 30 yards east of us and were taking pictures as fast as we were as the sun set in the west.

Which was fun because they sent a number of pictures that included Yesterday's Dream in the foreground of this spectacular sight!

Thanks Cindy for the picture at right :-)

The day itself was nice - a bit of kayaking, Steve trying his hand at fishing (notice no catching - just fishing :-) ) and a dinghy trip to Love You More for adult beverages at 5 pm. I'm thinking is was technically not docktails because we had no dock, right?

I was on the water in my kayak first with Steve following shortly. He was kind enough to blow up mine!!

Destination was the nearby shoreline of East Bahia Honda key. Like almost all of the mangrove islands on the bay side of the lower keys, it is primarily made up of a combination of red, white and black mangroves.

Also like most of the bayside mangrove islands, East Bahia Honda was destroyed by Irma. There is very little left that is growing even after a year and a half.

There is some question about whether or not the mangroves will come back and how long it might take. From what we can see, there has been very little change over the past year.





There are still literally thousands of cormorants, pelican, egrets and even osprey that make their homes here. And they do not like kayakers that come anywhere close to the island! Fortunately all they do is fly away :-) PS: that is NOT a line from my kayak tied to Steve's - it's really hard to sneak up and tie it on :-)

When all of these birds get worked up, it sounds like Jurassic Park!

These pictures give a good idea of the devastation of the island.

After a very peaceful night (I didn't even bother with the anchor alarm it was so calm), Steve was up early to a sunrise that was almost as good as the sunset was the night before!

Coffee on the flybridge is pretty hard to beat :-)  

It was so nice we just stayed where we were for a second night! I'm thinking it just doesn't take much to please us anymore .....

Just a normal sunset though Saturday night. Guess we shouldn't expect a super great one every night, right?

As we traveled back on Sunday, Steve had spotted what appeared to me to be just another crab pot but it was very shiny. Steve said it was a balloon.

And so it was! Guess there have to be SOME times when he's not wrong :-)

Anyway, we stopped and he fished it out of the water - it was for Valentine's Day. Which is nice but the sea turtles see a balloon floating and are fooled into thinking it is a jellyfish. 

Favorite food of sea turtles so they eat the balloon which is not a good thing. It's enough to kill the turtle .....

A fun thing he caught was a nice Spanish mackerel - perfect size for appetizers at docktail time :-)

Paul and Miriam left - old friends - both literally and figuratively!!

Yesterday we had an opportunity to visit with friends whom we haven't seen for a couple of years - Paul and Miriam. We first met them when we moved from Akron to Galion, Ohio. This was in 1976 when Steve took his first administrative job - joining Paul as assistant principals at Galion High School.

 Throughout the years we've kept in touch as we both moved around - staying mostly in northern Ohio.

Our kids grew up together and we grew old together :-) So many shared memories - including many of being on vacation in the Keys, renting and living on a boat while diving the Keys' reefs so familiar to us now so many years later.