Good News, and Come Snorkeling With US

 

Cudjoe Key, Florida (high 85, low 78)

 

Well, our heat wave has broken, but only because of a “cold front” that actually made it all the way down to the Keys.  There is a strong squall line passing over us right now.  So far there has been just a little thunder, lightning and wind, but we’ve gotten a lot of rain.

I guess we won’t be going out in the boat today.

The good news is that the owner of the house behind us has offered to let us park our boat on his seawall in the canal behind his place.  As soon as the weather passes by we will have a place to dock our boat in the water. Yay!

I was going to post about our evening in Key West for the Annual Conch Republic days,  it’s more fun to post underwater photos.

We’ve had a few days out in the boat on the Atlantic side at Looe Key Reef National Marine Sanctuary.  It’s a not to be missed place to visit if you are in the lower Keys.  (Sherry and David, did you hear that?)

We also discovered some nice spots on the gulf/bay side near the area where we almost spent the night.  :)

 

Come along on a snorkel trip with us.

This fish looks like two fish, but it’s actually only one. I think it is a deformed angel fish. It seemed healthy.

This is a group of large yellowtail snapper, which are my second favorite fish to eat.   I wish we could catch some this size.  We were in the marine sanctuary, so no spearing or catching these guys!

 

This is a typical plant that waves back and forth in the ocean currents. I am not sure of the name of it. If you’re inclined to be seasick, this doesn’t help.

This big rock like structure was probably a large piece of brain coral.  The Keys had a massive coral die off years ago and this is all that is left of this one.  If you look on the top it appears some type of coral growing on the top.  The orange stuff is a sponge.   The fish in the bottom center looking at me was a gray angelfish.

 

Here  is a close up of his cute little face.

Here is a better picture of the old piece of coral with new coral growing. Coral is very, very slow growing.   Mote Marine Laboratory has discovered a way to speed up the process and they have planted “coral farms” in various places here in the Keys.

This next picture shows a typical reef scene with the purple sea fans.  They used to be abundant in the Keys, but not so much anymore.

This next picture shows a fish cleaning station.   The big blue and purple fish is a tang.  He is waiting patiently for the tiny yellow fish to clean his skin.  The tang seems to be in a sort of a trance. Symbiosis between the two fish.  I’ve seen large grouper with their large mouths wide open, while cleaner crabs or small fish clean the inside of their mouths. They make a deal.,  I won’t eat you and you’ll get a free meal inside my mouth.   The yellow cleaner fish is tiny and hard to see but he’s there on the back  side of the middle fish.

I watched this for several minutes.

This is a typical shallow reef scene.  We were snorkeling in only about 4 feet of water.  That’s a great depth for snorkeling.  If you go over 6-8 feet without a scuba tank, you can’t see nearly as much and you lose a lot of color. We didn’t have good vis that particular day.

  

This is a hogfish (my first favorite fish to eat). They change color all the time.  Sometimes they are white and sometimes black head with white body. 

This next one is a juvenile that is orange and white striped.

This hog fish appeared almost white. He blends in with the sand.

 

This is a school of Sergeant majors.  The visibility (vis) wasn’t very good that day.

Out of the murky water came this nurse shark.

She came right towards me for a minute so I backed off a little and  turned and swam on down the reef.

Lobster season ended March 31, but look at all these lobster!

I found that I could stick my camera down into the hole and the lobster would touch my lens.  This guy touched my camera, got scared and scooted back into his hole.  Notice the scattered sand?

 

There are plenty of lobster everywhere.  It looks to be a good season coming up, but we won’t be here.

This is a sea cucumber.

This is a parrot fish.  They are large fish, probably about 24 inches long. 

They chomp on coral and poop out sand.  Remember that the next time you’re laying on a white sand beach.  :) If you look carefully at the fish in the photo above, you can see some newly minted sand.

 

The green appears sort of iridescent.

There are always plenty of curious barracuda.

 

I’m not sure when we’ll be able to get back out on the boat.  The cold front is bringing some wind for the next few days.

Sorry for so many photos.

Not the Kind of Email You Want

 

Cudjoe Key, Florida (high 90, low 90)

It’s getting mighty hot here in the Keys.

Al and I had a discussion yesterday about when we are leaving the Keys. I find it hard to believe it’s not summer everywhere and when I see pictures of snow, it shocks me to realize it’s not July or August!

We want to get some more boating days before we leave, but I’m thinking we need to leave in about 2 more weeks, so that we can spend some time in Tampa with Mom before we head to the mountains.

 

So, the last post, I mentioned a disturbing email we received while in Key West at the parade.

 

This is what we learned:

A a boat was fueling up at our marina and put approximately 20 gallons of fuel in their rod holder, rather than their fuel tank.
Just wanted to let everyone know the situation is under control. The Fire Department and the Coast Guard are here and we are taking every precaution as directed by them. We are waiting for a licensed salvage operation to come and pump the fuel out of the bilge.

Until the boat is out of the water the Fire Department has asked that everyone stay away from the boat ramp, marina, salt water swim area, and TGIF area as a precaution, as well as to not interfere with the salvage operation.

The situation should be resolved shortly and there is NO CAUSE FOR ALARM. The Fire Department and Coast Guard are well equipped to handle this situation and are doing their best to resolve it as quickly as possible.

 

UPDATE

The salvage company will be here at 7am to pump out the fuel and remove the boat. All fuel is still contained within the boat. The authorities believe it is safer to perform a pump out during daylight hours. We have a guard standing watch at the boat ramp overnight to ensure no one goes near the area. Please stay clear until the salvage operation is complete.

UH OH. Somebody had a very bad day!

When we got back home at about 11pm (yes believe it or not, we actually stayed out past dark) the boat ramp was blocked off.  We could see the boat still in the water and there was yellow crime scene tape all over the area. 

We had planned on going out in the boat the next morning, but at 7am the salvage guy still hadn’t arrived.

Everyone else was there waiting.

We had a difficult time understanding how someone could pump 23 gallons of fuel into the rod holders.  The fuel tank has a screw on lid, the rod holders are wide open.  What we were told was that he took the fuel cap off, then the boat moved a little for some reason and when he put the fuel nozzle into the fuel tank, he accidently put it into the wrong hole.   Alcohol involved?   We wondered.

So 23 gallons of gasoline was all pumped into the bilge of the boat, which is between the floor and the hull.  You have an automatic bilge pump that pumps water out of the bilge when necessary.  We assume he turned off the bilge pump, but could that cause a spark?  We noticed he left his GPS on overnight, so maybe he was told not to touch anything electrical.

It was a fire and an environmental  hazard and the fire department was taking it very seriously.

We watched the action from a distance.

I felt sorry for the firemen in their suits. It was terribly hot, even at 8am.

The salvage guy was supposed to arrive at 7am, but he was late.  Not only could no one use the marina, but no one could get boat fuel either, and several boats were turned away.  People come from all over to buy our fuel and there are not a lot of other options by water.

Finally the salvage guy came and proceeded to start pumping out the fuel.  The guy on the dock in the white t-shirt is boat owner/guilty party.

The salvage guys were very, very careful to not spill any more fuel into the water than necessary.  What little leakage they had was cleaned up with a skimmer and absorbent towels.  The fuel was pumped into those plastic jugs.  At $3.59 a gallon, this guy wasted 23 gallons of fuel!

The fire crew was ready, just in case.

If you ever need a clean up crew. These guys are available.  :)

I’m sure this was a very, very expensive lesson for this boat owner.  The fire department, EMT, Coast Guard, and clean up people were all there for various periods of time.   His boat liability insurance should have covered this bill, but we saw him giving the clean up guy his debit card.  He will get a bill from the Coast Guard, Fire Department and EMT more than likely.  This is a good lesson on why we all need to carry plenty of liability insurance.  Can you imagine if that boat had caught fire by the fuel docks?

The clean up took about 4 hours and once they all left we were finally able to get our boat into the water.   We headed offshore to Looe Key Reef and did some snorkeling on a shallow part of the reef.

Here are a few shots I took of a school of parrotfish.

Can you spot the little hogfish in the foreground towards the right side?  That is our favorite fish to eat.

 

Here is another of a hogfish.

 

We snorkeled around for awhile then came up with the intention of moving to another spot.   Once we climbed into the boat, we realized  it was getting pretty choppy and it would take us longer to get back in, so we decided to head back home.  We had a big night planned in Key West.  That was the night for the Conch Republic Battle on the waterfront.

Stay tuned.  It was a fun night full of toilet paper, water canons, and fun.

Meet Mr. Barracuda

 

Cudjoe Key, Florida (high 85, low 75)

 

We’re expecting a cold front in a few days bringing a little wind, so we may not get on the boat for a few days.  It’s predicted to get down to 75 for the high and mid to low 60’s at night.   burrrr

We try to take advantage of each day where there are light winds, sunny skies and calm seas,and that  is exactly what we did yesterday.

We headed back out to the Atlantic side and did a little fishing.   We don’t need to worry about Al hurting his shoulder with the size of the fish he was catching.  :)

This pelican flew in and waited nearby, hoping for some fish cleaning scraps.  Sorry Pelican.

We were being watched by the ever present blimp known as Fat Albert.

We heard the sound of freedom all afternoon as the Navy fighter jets flew overhead. They always give me goose bumps and we love watching them.  No pictures though, they are just too fast.

After fishing for an hour or two, Al wanted to head back out to Looe Key Reef.  The water is always so beautiful, we love just being there.

In a previous post, I mentioned our fish finder and some of you wondered what it was.  It’s an electronic device that is mounted to your boat which tells you the depth and water temperature, as well as a view of the bottom, and any fish who happen to be swimming by. They have improved greatly over the years.

You can see on this next photo there were some larger fish below.

The ocean mostly consists of flat sandy bottom, which is not where most fish live.  Fish like some sort of  structure on the bottom, whether its a reef, rocks or a shipwreck. You can see from the fish finder that this bottom was not flat.  The old fish finders used paper which had to be changed when the roll ran out.  The new ones are just like a computer screen, much nicer unless you want to rewind and see what just swam by.

We got to the reef and headed towards one of the mooring buoys in the shallower water.  8.3 feet to be exact, as you can see from the fish finder.

This colorful sailboat passed right in front of us.

I was trying to get a picture of the beard Al is trying to grow.  Can you see his furry face?   I think he may be about to give up on it, but he really hates shaving, so we’ll see.

The water has warmed up to the point we’re ready to get wet.  Almost 82 degrees.  Sherry would have been in 10 degrees cooler, but not us!

I sat on the dive platform with my feet in the water to test the water temp.  This barracuda came up so say hi.  I think he is the same one who swam all over the reef right beside us last year.  I think he may have grown a little though. 

I have a long handled camera mount that can attach to my underwater camera and go in the water.  I stuck my camera in the water and photographed Mr. Barracuda.   I was a little worried that he might try to take a bite out of it, but he didn’t seem interested.

He is a pretty big boy.  It was hard to tell for sure from the surface but probably between 4-5 feet long.

He has quite a toothy smile.

 

There were actually 2 other barracuda but he chased a smaller one away and the bigger one only came for a short visit.

We had the usual school of Yellowtail Snapper.

They seem to know you can’t catch them on the reef since it’s a marine sanctuary.  They come right up to you, but you go outside of the sanctuary and you can’t find them.  Darn…they are very good eating.

Mr. Barracuda had plenty to eat if he was hungry.

All too soon, it was time to go, so we disconnected from the mooring buoy and headed to shore.  It’s only about a 20 minute run back to Venture Out.