Two Rescues

 

Cudjoe Key, Florida (high 85, low 70)

On Thursday we enjoyed another beautiful day out at Looe Key Reef.   The seas were calm, the water clear, and the breezes gentle. 

We didn’t get in the water, but were happy sitting in the boat watching the fish, snorkelers and reading our books.   I tried out my new underwater camera (Christmas present) and watched the activity below water.

This boat appeared to be sitting pretty low in the water, so I  used my “stalker zoom” to see what was going on.  The boat had a low freeboard (sides) and 4 people and one dog were all sitting on one side.   Not too smart, do you think?

Friday was physical therapy day for Al and a block party here at Venture Out.

A while back,  during a run up to Marathon for boat supplies,we drove over to Sombrero Beach, and found a little excitement there.

They have a beautiful walkway on the back side of the beach.

The pavement has special “Keysie” type designs of crabs and hatchling turtles.

 

People seem to be trying to aggravate me lately.  Many people seem to think they are the only people around and pay absolutely no attention to their surroundings, other people or vehicles. Everywhere we go we see clueless and rude people! 

We walked along the narrow walkway to the beach behind 4 very clueless and rude people.  This is what the walkway looked like so you can how narrow it was.

They spread out, slowed down, stopped, chatted, then moved a few steps, all the while blocking our path to get around them. They were oblivious to the fact that there were any other people in the world.  I was patient and didn’t say anything, but I sure wanted to!  We finally got past them and I was stopped with my camera aimed, ready to take a picture when one of those same women walked right in front of me as I was snapping the picture.   grrrrr.  Now, you’ve ticked me off all the way!  Again, I kept my mouth shut.

I got my revenge a minute later when her friend was trying to take a picture.  I decided to “photo bomb” her.     She got a lovely picture of me too!   Not very nice, but it sure felt good.  :) 

anyway…back to the excitement we found on the beach.

The beach was beautiful and there were lots of people enjoying themselves.

All was well until we came upon this pelican.

Something didn’t look right, so I zoomed in to get a better look with my camera.   I couldn’t see anything wrong, but I worried that he may have had a slashed pouch.  Some cruel person  around here is intentionally slashing the pouches on pelicans.  The pouch below their bill is where they put the fish before they swallow them.  A slashed pouch will cause them to starve to death. It turned out the problem with this bird was a fish hook and fishing line.

Some good Samaritans had already noticed the bird and called the Wildlife Rescue, but they were delayed in traffic due the annual Seafood Festival in Marathon.

The wildlife rescue guy finally arrived. That’s him in the turquoise shirt.  He examined the bird, and determined he would be okay, but that he needed a few days rehab at their facility.

It was a happy ending.

 

Later that same day, we stopped in at the grocery store and came upon this.   See what I mean about oblivious people?

Notice the yellow line showing where the parking space was? 

There was plenty of room for the truck, he just didn’t bother to worry about the car already occupying the other space.

It was obvious the red Cadillac had been parked when the truck decided to squeeze in and it was obvious who was at fault. 

Apparently, the truck had previous parking issues because  the left fender was also damaged in about the same place.

I grabbed a store employee and asked him to call the manager, police and page the driver of the red Cadillac.  I was concerned the truck drive would come out and just drive away.  My ex claim adjuster background made me want to see that this guy caught.  I paid way too many claims for this type of accident where no one was caught. We waited around for the police to arrive and to see if the truck driver ever came out.  The police finally came, but we had to leave before the truck driver came.  I really wanted to see what that idiot looked like.

I hope it turned out well for the lady with the Cadillac.

Today, it’s dinner with friends and tomorrow out on the boat to the “back country.”

Looe Key Reef National Marine Sanctuary

 

Cudjoe Key, Florida (high 82, low 72)

The typical March winds died down and everyone with a boat is heading offshore.   Including us.

Monday, Wednesday and Friday are physical therapy days for Al.  Now that the weather is nicer for boating, these physical therapy sessions are getting a little bothersome.  :)

Yesterday, since the winds were calm and there was no therapy, so we decided to take the boat out.

It took us a while to load our stuff on the boat, and remember to do all the regular things that were no longer second nature to us.  We also had to remember all the important things we like to have onboard like paper towels, hand wipes, sunscreen and things like that. We always keep those things in the boat when we’re using it, but over summer storage everything was removed, so we’re starting from scratch.

Al assured me that we could launch and re-load the boat without  him injuring his shoulder, but I was a little worried.

Al made sure to wear good shoes with a lot of tread, so that he wouldn’t slip on the wet algae covered ramp, and we had no trouble launching.

The next step was to decide where to go.  Atlantic or back country, which is basically the Gulf of Mexico. The boat cranked up immediately, seemed to be running great, so we decided to head out to the Atlantic.   It was flat calm and we could be to the reef in minutes.

We wound our way through the maze of navigational buoys and out to deeper water.  The shallower water has a lot of sea grass on the bottom, so it appears a bit green, as you can see in the next pictures.

That is Venture Out in the background.

Once we passed buoy #1, we were in deeper water and the water became a beautiful blue.

It was flat calm. 

 

Looe Key Reef is one the nicest places in the Keys to snorkel and dive.  Luckily for us, it’s only about 8 miles away.

The reef has the typical spur and groove pattern like most Keys reefs.  You can see this in the next picture which I borrowed from the internet.   The water is deeper than it looks.  Most of those boats are probably in 20-30 feet of water, but there are shallower areas as well.

The dark blue is deep water.  You can see how easily a ship could run aground. They are in 100 feet of water one minute and the next minute there is a shallow reef, some of which is only 2 feet deep.

No fishing is allowed, and since it’s a marine sanctuary, you are not allowed to drop an anchor.  Mooring balls are placed throughout the reef and you hook your boat up to them.

The reef was named after the HMS Looe, which ran aground and burned in 1794.  It’s an interesting place and you can read about it HERE.   Apparently they are still finding some relics from a few ships that have struck the reef. 

We didn’t bring our snorkeling or diving gear, so we didn’t get into the water, which was nearly 80 degrees.

We’re not sure exactly how Al will be able to get back into the boat without using/hurting his shoulder.  Any ideas?   We have a three step ladder attached to a platform on the back of the boat.  There is a grab rail on one side and a big cleat on the other side.  Normally, we grab those to pull ourselves out of the water and then walk up the steps.  I’m thinking about tying a heavy kayak strap around under Al’s arms and pulling him up.  The problem with that, is if it doesn’t work, we’re screwed.  I’d have to tow him home behind the boat, which is commonly known as “chumming.”    :)  The sharks might like that.

We have never seen so many turtles, and one in particular seemed to be messing with us.  He would pop his head up, look right at us and then go back down before we could snap a decent picture.  They normally don’t come up for air as often as this one did, so we’re thinking he was teasing us.

This is about the best picture we could get.

There are always a lot of sharks on the reef.  We managed to get a good shot of one of them.

There were also a lot of barracuda and more seemed to arrive all the time.

A gigantic eagle ray  swam by several times, but he stayed down a few feet, making it hard to get a decent photo.  He must have had a 6-8 foot wing span.

Remember I said you aren’t allowed to anchor on here?  Evidently someone didn’t tell this guy, because he was definitely anchored.  The anchor was in the sand, but he would have gotten a big fine if someone caught him.

We hung out a few hours, read our books, took a short nap, watched the fish, took pictures and had our lunch.  We decided to head in early so that we could load the boat before there were too many other boats coming in at the same time.

We were more worried about getting the boat back on to the trailer than taking it off, but it turned out just fine.  I  planned on doing the winch cranking, but we had the trailer in deep enough water, so there was very little cranking and Al got it done before I had a chance to help. 

Today is PT again.   Sigh…..no boating today.

 

Stay tuned for our story of a rescue of an injured pelican…..