Settling in and Watching the Wind Blow

 

Cudjoe Key Florida-Venture Out Resort  (high 83, low 73)

We haven’t done anything real exciting since my last post.  The faucet repair was successful, so we didn’t have a flood when we turned back on the kitchen water.  That’s always a good thing!

 

Initially, when we bought this lot, we intended to plant some hedge style plants to give us some privacy.  After living here for a while, we decided we don’t want to do anything that will block our wonderful sea breeze.  We get such an amazing sea breeze virtually all the time,  and we don’t want to ruin that by planting the wrong things.  When the temperature is cooler, we freeze and don’t appreciate the breeze at all but most of the time it’s very nice.   It also keeps the bugs away.

In addition to the wonderful sea breeze, we can actually see the Atlantic Ocean from our site.  Granted, it’s just a peek through someone else’s bushes, but hey, we can see the ocean!     So close but yet so far.  :)   If we plant the wrong thing, it will ruin our “ocean view.”

Even though our site is out in the open, and in kind of a fish bowl type of setting, our neighbors do their living in their back yards (facing the canals and ocean), so they aren’t exactly watching us anyway.  If we plant things for privacy, it will not only ruin our view and breeze, but make our lot seem smaller.  Right now, we have the illusion of a bigger lot because of the vacant lot in front of us. 

Our thinking now for planting, is to use some  big pots for decoration and color and maybe next winter a palm tree or two.  Whether or not anything will survive over the summer in a pot, is doubtful, but I’m trying to find things that can take some neglect.  We shall see.  I do see a lot of certain types of plants in pots.  I am assuming most of the owners are gone for the summer.

Here is a picture of what we’ve done so far.  A lot of what you see in this picture is not our lot.  Ours ends  before the big hibiscus tree in the back, so you can see we don’t have much room to plant.  Land here in the Keys is expensive. You can see the houses on the canal behind us also are on small lots as well, but boy do they have beautiful views!

There is one beautiful palm I would love to have, but unfortunately it gets much to big for our site.   Isn’t it a beauty?   Unfortunately, my photo didn’t capture it’s true beauty.   I believe its called a silver saw palm.

 

We are becoming regulars at some local bars for their  happy hour specials.   Fishing and drinking are two of the favorite activities here in the Keys and when it’s too windy to fish, you drink.  Yeah, we’re fitting right in here.   We like to start happy hour at Springers, because it’s cheap, and then move to Boondocks for their live music.  I really need to photograph the inside of Boondocks.  It’s a huge tiki hut and it’s so pretty inside.  It’s a huge place, all open air with tons of ceiling fans to keep it cool.  It’s a lovely “building.”

Local favorite Howard Livingston and the Mile Marker 24 Band, was playing on Friday, and he always draws a big crowd.  He will be playing with the Doobie Brothers in Key West on May 3rd.  I’m not sure we’ll still be here by then, but we’d love to see that show.

 

We finally got out in the boat yesterday after a long dry (windy) spell.  The seas were pretty choppy, but we were able to get offshore enough to do some fishing.

Unfortunately, the only thing he caught was a little grunt.

This yellow boat, however, always seems to frequently catch the big ones.  We’ve seen him on numerous occasions chasing after a big fish that they had hooked.  

 

We are adjusting to life here at Venture Out.  We haven’t been in the pool yet, but we finally made it to the hot tub.   The hot tub is wonderful.    It’s  open air, enclosed with lattice sides for privacy, but the top is open.  We sat in the warm bubbling water looking up at the near full moon and feeling the wonderful ocean breeze.  Life doesn’t get much better than that.   After about half hour, we started getting too warm, so we went home and sat on the patio, enjoying the wonderful breeze and bright moon.   

We are discovering amenities here that we weren’t aware of when we bought our property.   One nice thing is a free compressor to air your tires. You can air up your bicycle, boat, Rv or car tires there. It’s a little thing, but a nice feature.

Another thing we like is that there are 5-6 different laundry facilities.  Each has a clothesline in the back, which is nice because they won’t allow any clotheslines at your site.  Not even the kind you put on your Rv ladder.  I like to hang my clothes outside on occasion, so I like having access to a clothesline.  Each laundry building has bathrooms and nice shower facilities. 

Here are our morning sunrise photos by the marina.  I know I’ve posted similar photos before, but this is the very best place for sun rise.

I never got this posted this morning.  We are back home after a nice day, except Mr. Al had another near catastrophe.  He’s okay though.