RV Temperature Alert for Pets, and Fun on the Island

 

Wesley Chapel, Fl  (high 90, low 68)

 

Things are about the same here. 

Our friend Cindi is still in the hospital.  The doctors are waiting for some test results and then hopefully she will be released and can recover.

We still have her dog Kujo.  He is doing well and seems happy.  We love dogs.  We love other peoples dogs, but we don’t want a dog.  Cats are so much easier.   He is a good dog, but he’s a dog, and we don’t want a dog.

 

 

Now that we have the boat here, we have been taking every opportunity to use it.  With the hot Florida weather, we always worry about leaving the cats alone inside the motorhome.  If there should be a power outage, or the AC quits, they could quickly overheat and could die by the time we got home.

We  have a camera set up in the motorhome and I can look at the thermometer inside the coach from my phone and check on the cats.   It is a great thing to have, but requires internet and of course I have to remember to check.  I began searching for an alternative that would work without internet, and that would send me alerts if the temperature got too high.  I finally found another system that will do the job. You set the alerts for the high and lows you want and it will send you a text if the RV gets too hot or cold (yeah right).  

I found this gadget here:  Cell Sign Technology

Here is what it looks like.

I’m not exactly sure how it works, but it has a Sim card inside and works much like a cell phone does for texts. You have to purchase the unit, which is $119.  Then you pay $13.50 a month for the sim card alerts.   You can cancel at any time and there are no contracts.  It’s well worth the money for my peace of mind.  We love our kitties and would feel horrible if something were to happen to them while we were gone.

It does not require internet, but you do have to have some sort of cell signal in your area.

It plugs into an outlet and is only about the size of a cell phone. If the power goes out, or the temperature gets too warm, it will send you a text to notify you of the problem.  You can also text it anytime you want to know the temperature, or to double check that it’s working.   With this and the camera, I feel pretty comfortable leaving the cats alone for the day.

So, now that we have the cats (and dog) covered, we can feel safe going out in the boat.     The dog stays at home with the cats when we go boating and so far, so good.

We managed to get out twice last week and both times the water was clear, blue and beautiful.  From where we store the boat, we have a short three mile run down the Anclote River in Tarpon Springs, out to Anclote Key.  It’s a beautiful barrier island right off the coast.   The past two times we’ve been there the water was as clear and beautiful as I’ve ever seen it.

We anchored right off the beach where we could wade over to the island.

There weren’t many people when we go there, but they started arriving later in the afternoon.

We had two manatees hanging around all day. That’s pretty unusual for that area and I worried about them with all the boats around.

The picture isn’t real clear, but the dark spots are manatee. They were right in front of our boat by our anchor.

 

 

We saw a school of Snook hanging around all day and another boater saw a huge Tarpon (fish). 

We saw this crazy boat.   It is one boat, but looks like a combination of two different boats. 

 

 

This boat apparently went to Anclote Key and never made it back.  The black thing in is a mercury motor.  The island is growing constantly and the last time we were there the boat numbers were no longer showing. It will be covered up completely probably by the next time we go out.  It’s interesting to watch how islands form and change over time.

 

 

Isn’t that beautiful?

 

We took a long walk along the beach, and picked up a few shells.  There have always been a lot of shells there.

We’ve been to Anclote Key hundreds and hundreds of times and it was rarely like this.

 

 

 

 

 

After out second walk, we headed back towards the boat and found we weren’t alone anymore.

We almost couldn’t see our boat from the others that decided they needed to park right next to us.

We are the little boat with the blue top in the middle.   There was plenty of beach area, but for some reason they felt the need to park right on top of us. 

This is what it looked like when we left. 

 

 

 

Shortly after we got back to the boat, we got another visitor.  It’s an island hopper from Tarpon Springs….AKA cattle boat.  YIKES!  Look at all those people!

 

This is going to be a rainy week in Florida, so it looks like no boating for a few days.