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.