A Rare Bird and other Adventures

 

Florida Keys  (high 80, low 71)

We’ve been busy around here lately, but not much that’s blog worthy.

We did discover an interesting subdivision we never knew existed.

There is a runway that runs between the two rows of homes.

On this side of the runway, these houses are on a canal.

How is this for the good life?

A motor home.

A yacht in the back yard.

An airplane,  and golf cart in your garage.

This house also had what we’re thinking is some sort of telescope.

This plane just barely fit into the carport.

The garage doors open like this.  I thought it was kind of interesting.

 

Of course, here in the Keys, you never know what kind of crazy things you’ll see, so I always bring my camera.

This guy has an unique business.

There are palm trees every where, but I’ve never seen one quite like this fuzzy one.

I don’t know what this tree is, but I saw another one with the “legs” about 5 feet tall, and it almost looked like it could walk away.

These interesting looking pods were growing on the tree.

 

Most of the waters around here are in or near the Great White Heron National Wildlife Refuge.  Great White Herons are only found in Florida, especially in the Keys and Everglades.  They are larger than the very similar Great Egret, with a more massive bill, and pale legs.

We don’t see a lot of them, but this guy was hanging around the dock at Bahia Honda State Park.  There were 3-4 of us taking his picture, and he was most cooperative.

This couple was coming in on their dingy and the heron was there to meet them at the dock.  Isn’t that little dog cute?

 

Then it was on to some fishing, despite the no fishing sign posted prominently.

We hung around the marina for a while and made friends with Lulu.  She was wearing her life preserver.  I think the people came to shore from their sailboat.

After we left the marina, we headed over to the beach, where everyone was enjoying the warm water.

It has been a little cooler here than normal, but it hasn’t stopped people from enjoying themselves.

 

We finally got the boat out again yesterday, for the first time since we replaced battery #2.   I’m glad to report that it started with the first crank every time.    Unfortunately, the winds have been blowing bringing some choppy seas, so we  found a little cove out of the wind and relaxed.

 

I went up front to read, but Al caught me catching a little nap.

We saw a manatee swim by.

 

These people were more energetic than we were.

 

So, that’s what we’ve been doing the past few days.  We have a Tina Turner show at the campground tonight and we haven’t decided yet what to do today.  It’s still a bit choppy to go very far offshore in the boat, so if we go, we will have to find a nice cove out of the wind.   There is really no place better to read than in a gently rocking boat.

Super Bowl Sunday, Keys Style

 

Sunshine Key Rv Resort and Marina, Ohio Key, Florida  (high 81, low 73)

 

Our weather continues to be perfect.  There isn’t  much variation from day to day. It’s in the low  80’s during the daytime, and low 70’s at night.    I’m always surprised how consistent the weather is here.  Some people might get bored with the consistency, but not us.   

So, how do you spend Super Bowl Sunday in the Keys?

Well, we started out with some coffee and computer time, then a walk around the island.  Once the sun comes up, it starts getting pretty warm inside, so we have to turn on the AC pretty early.   I love the cool mornings, but they just don’t last long enough.  I’m not complaining though.

It looked like a pretty good day for a kayak trip, but just to be sure we walked over and looked.  We are close to the water, but can’t see if from our site. It’s so nice to be close enough to check out the conditions first.  We can also tell whether to launch on the Atlantic or Bay side.

Sometimes you get that perfect day, where the winds and currents are light and the water is crystal clear.  Unfortunately, those days are rare, and yesterday was not one of those days.

We decided the beach launch site was a little choppy, so we opted to launch from the marina, which is blocked from the wind a little.  The water in the marina was very clear, but since the tide was high, we couldn’t see all the tropical fish in the mangroves.

We headed out of the channel and again found some pretty strong currents.  I don’t know what’s up with all the strong currents.  It’s not supposed to be like that without a full moon.

We paddled over to the old dilapidated dock.  It’s not safe to walk on,  but no one told the cormorants.

 

When we kayak in the Keys, we like to putz around and look at the fish and birds.  More floating, than paddling.  Unfortunately, the current kept trying to take us out to sea, so we couldn’t relax much.

The water wasn’t real clear either, so  we looked for a place to sit back and relax.

It looks like Al found one.

His thinking was that he would take a short nap, and I would watch to make sure he didn’t drift too far.   Wrong.  If he’s taking a nap, I want one too!

We decided to head towards the Atlantic side, going underneath the bridge.

We got underneath the bridge and headed towards the Atlantic side, but soon realized it was pretty choppy there too.

We puttered around this area for a while and found some pretty blue water.

Naptime again?

We stayed out a few hours, then decided to go home and have a late lunch.  I made another BLT on Cuban bread.  Yummy.

After lunch, we went into town for some wings (real ones, not vegan substitutes) for Super Bowl.  He had planned on fresh Key West shrimp, but they guy that normally sells them at the flea market wasn’t there.  Darn.

 

When we got home, Al connected the new boat lights, and after a bit of tinkering, we have trailer lights again.  Yay.

While he did that I read a little more of my Steve Jobs book.   What an interesting guy he was.  He wasn’t always the nicest person, but he was definitely interesting.

By this time it was time for the big game, so we went inside.  Al watched the game, and I went to “my room” and watched a movie.   I’m one of the few people in America that isn’t interested in watching the Super Bowl.   I watched Bruno Mars this morning, and the best commercials I’ve already watched on Facebook.

So, that’s how you spend Super Bowl Sunday in the Keys.

Tomorrow is the day we take our boat for it’s new motor.  We are very anxious to get it back so that we can get it out on the water.  The kayaks are nice, but the boat is better.

“This is Life Alert Calling about Your Mother”

 

Sunshine Key Rv Resort & Marina, Ohio Key, Florida  (high 80, low 71)

 

Last night about 9 pm, I got a call Life Alert  saying they had received a help request from my Mothers unit.  If you recall, a few months ago, we got her one of those Life Alert machines.  (I’ve fallen and I can’t get up).  She wears a gadget around her neck and if she should fall or become ill, she pushes the button to summon help.   It’s a really nice system and one that we highly recommend for older people, or anyone who lives alone.

Their usual protocol if they get a signal is to first call the home and see if they get a response.  They couldn’t reach my Mom by phone because she didn’t hang her cordless phone up correctly the last time she used it.  

Anyway, the call concerned us.  I called her cell phone, which we have for her, for just this kind of thing.  Of course, she had it turned off.  It’s a new one and she didn’t know how to use it.     :)

Life Alert was sending a police officer over to check her out, so all I could do was to wait. My brother was working and couldn’t get there right away.   After a few minutes I decided to call her home number again, and this time it rang, instead of the fast busy signal I had been getting.  It turns out that earlier she had noticed a flashing reset button on the machine and pushed it, not really knowing what to do with it.  A man came on, she told him what happened and he told her he would reset it and everything was okay. 

It appears the error was on their part when they didn’t reset the machine, and that started the ball rolling.  Mom felt really bad since she had frightened so many people.  We were just glad to know the service was working like it is supposed to, and that she was okay.  I ended up speaking to three different people at Life Alert and they couldn’t have been nicer.

 

The rest of our day couldn’t top the exciting end that we had, but we did end up having a nice Keys style day.

We got up early  yesterday, and went to the flea market they hold every Saturday and Sunday.  It’s a smaller flea market, which is just the kind I like. 

Our reason for going to the flea market yesterday, was to go to their wonderful produce stands.   We bought some wonderful Brussels,, green beans, beautiful red tomatoes, red peppers, pineapple, Florida avocado, asparagus, corn, and eggplant.   When we left the Everglades the other day, we noticed a lot of farms.  We’re thinking most of this produce is fresh from those farms.  

 

After we left the flea market, we took a drive around Big Pine key and found this very nice property that was shaded with a lot of trees and plants.  The noise from the birds was what attracted us to the property in the first place.  Evidently they are animal lovers, because this is the sign that was on their gate.

It sounds like our motorhome.

 

We came home and made a wonderful BLT (with vegan bacon) and using fresh baked Cuban bread.  Boy, was it good!

Last night we made a stir fry using all the produce.  We may run out of produce before next week.

After lunch and a short nap, we decided to take a short kayak paddle.    We launched at the campground by the beach area which is under the fishing bridge we walk in the mornings.

The tide was going out, so we had to carry the kayaks a little further than usual.

 

We got into the kayaks and started what we expected to be a nice leisurely paddle.  Wrong.  The current was ripping and you could barely paddle against it. We stayed on the bay side, but probably should have let the current carry us over to the Atlantic side. 

In trying to avoid the strong current, we ended up too close to shore and got stuck. 

Poor Al had the duty of towing us out of the soft mucky sand.

We felt bad that we were grounded, because we were in sea grass area which and you are not supposed to damage them.  Oops.

After we rounded the bend and got into the mangroves, it was deeper and the currents weren’t so bad.

 

It’s a pretty paddle through the mangroves and there was the very elusive Kingfisher flitting around teasing me that I couldn’t take his picture. 

For years, I’ve been trying to take a picture of a kingfisher, and yesterday I finally got a decent picture.  Not great, but at least I have one.

 

 

 

 

We paddled through the mangroves for a while then decided to head towards the marina and take the boats out there instead of the beach area.

 

I don’t remember seeing the marina quite this full. 

 

 

There are some mangroves along the back side of the marina along a deep ledge.  The fish like to congregate there.

We saw barracuda.

We saw Angel fish Parrot fish and lots of the very tasty mangrove snappers.

 

We stayed in this area for quite a while before heading towards the ramp.

I found a boat I would like.

The next picture shows the campsites along the water in the marina.  They are pretty popular sites.

The two trailers on the right of the picture are rental trailers, owned by the campground. They are new trailers, but are VERY expensive. 

The pelicans were coming home to roost for the evening, finding  nice clean boats to their liking.

 

We plan on doing another paddle today.  The wind is light, the seas are flat calm and the temperature will be 80 degrees.  It looks like a perfect day to be out on the water.

Calm Seas and Sunshine

 

Sunshine Key Rv Resort and Marina, Ohio Key, Florida  (high 82, low 71)

 

The weather cooperated and yesterday, we finally got our early morning walk on the fishing bridge.

We took light jackets, but quickly found out they were not needed. 

This is what some of the streets looked like after all the rain on Thursday.

Fortunately, there are no puddles on our site.  Some people weren’t as lucky.  The sites you see here to the right are right on the water but the first few don’t have sewer connections, for some reason.  Sunshine Key does a pump out service for these people.

Here is a picture of these same sites from the top of the bridge.

We can’t get a reservation at these waterfront sites if we use our Thousand Trails membership with discounts, so I guess we’ll never be having this wonderful view.

Sunshine Key Rv Resort and Marina takes up the entire island of Ohio Key.  I guess they decided Sunshine Key is sexier than calling it Ohio Key Rv Resort and Marina.

Sunshine Key is right off the Overseas highway, which is the main road through all of the Keys.  The campground is quite a bit lower than the highway.   We walked up to the road and then on to the old bridge.  They were nice enough to keep the old bridge and make it into a very nice, and popular fishing bridge.  There are trash cans every few feet, but unfortunately some of the fishermen can’t be bothered to use them. 

This is the beginning of the first span of the fishing bridge.  Notice all the trash cans?

You can keep going,  and walk or bike all the way to Marathon Key if you like.  You would have to walk over the 7 Mile bridge though. Actually you could walk or bike either up to Key Largo or down to Key West and have a nice bicycle trail most all the way.

The next picture is going over the 7 Mile bridge.  I wouldn’t want to ride a bike over it, but a lot of people do.  It looks like a good place to get hit by a car to me.

 

We opted to just walk along the fishing bridge.  We like to look down into the water to see all the fish.  A little later in the year, we’ll start to see the beautiful spotted Leopard Rays.   We always look forward to seeing them.

The sun rises on the other side of the bridge on the Atlantic side.   Unfortunately, there is a busy highway and power lines that get in the way of a good picture from this particular place.

One of these mornings we’ll take a drive to find the perfect place to watch the sunrise.

The next pictures are taken from the fishing bridge, overlooking the bay side of the island.   The Overseas Highway divides the islands. One side is the Atlantic Ocean and the other side is the bay.

 

After the bridge walk, we walked around the park for a while.

Look what we saw?   No, this is not Baxter, and no, this is not our motor home.   It an exact duplicate of our motorhome, and an almost duplicate of our cat.

 

A few minutes after we took this picture, the owner Len came over and we compared notes about our motor homes.  He was a diesel mechanic, so we picked his brain.  We told him about the coolant leak we had before we left the cold weather in Georgia.  He said that was completely normal with cold weather and it would have quit as soon as it warmed up.  He suggested we tighten the clamps, which is what Al did.  That made us feel better.

Len and his wife Gloria have a blog also.   We exchanged cards and  Here  is their blog.   I haven’t had a chance to read it yet.

 

Yesterday was a work day.  The weather was calling for mostly cloudy with a 30% chance of rain, but it was a gorgeous sunny day with no rain at all.   Just my kind of day.

Al worked on the boat.  The tail lights on the trailer weren’t working, which is normal when you submerge your trailer in salt water.  It had submersible lights on it, but they still don’t quite last forever.  He decided to get completely new lights and wiring, because there was no way to open the plastic housing where the bulbs and wires were housed.  Fortunately our Home Depot has a good selection of boating supplies.  Only in the Keys, huh?

We were hoping to drop the boat off in Key Largo for the new motor today (Saturday), but he didn’t quite get the new trailer lights finished up.  I guess it will have to wait until Tuesday since they are closed Sunday and Monday.  We’re hoping it will be done quickly and we can start using the boat.  Yesterday was a gorgeous day on the water with flat calm seas.  We could have taken the kayaks, but the trailer lights got first priority.  Oh well.

I spent my day puttering around the house, doing some laundry and cleaning.  I rode into town with Al for parts and then sat outside and read for a while. 

At the clubhouse last night, they had a Blues Brothers tribute show.  It was $7 per person but unfortunately we weren’t here when the advance tickets were sold a few weeks ago.  We walked by and looked in the window.  It looked really good.  We were sorry we missed it.  This month they are having a Tina Turner tribute.  We’re hoping we’ll be able to get tickets for this.  There is a limited space in the clubhouse, so tickets are first come, first serve.

 

I managed to sleep in this morning….until 5:15!   I’m working on sleeping a little longer.  My problem is that when I go someplace new and fun, I’m excited to start my day.  Unfortunately, I was a little draggy yesterday, so I am trying to sleep in a bit.

Today is the flea market day.  We always enjoy going because they have wonderful fresh produce and often nice fresh pink Key West shrimp.   Al thinks he needs shrimp for superbowl.

It looks like another gorgeous day.  Maybe we’ll be able to get the kayaks out for a while.