Here comes the rain again.

We awoke this morning to grey skies but that didn't keep us from hitting the beach for our morning walk. We made it back to RH as the rain started to fall. I fixed breakfast and sat under the awing to enjoy breakfast while I read the morning newspaper. Imagine my surprise when out of the corner of my eye I see these two beady little eyes staring at me from on top of the table. WOW, don't make any sudden moves because this fury thing is within striking distance. Is it the peanut butter waffle I'm eating that is attracting him? Swallow the waffle whole so that maybe this wild critter might go away.Reta, RETA, come help get this thing away from me! Throw some nuts at it! Lucky for me I am married to the Dr Doolittle. She showed up with nuts and he was all over her.
Thank God someone is courageous enough to communicate with animals. The only way I like to interact with any wildlife is to have a long, sharp, pointy, stick between them and me. So much for sitting and reading the paper. It's kind of hard when you have these tiny little, wet footprints all over the newspaper.

You can hear me in the video getting freaked out because this thing is ready to jump on me. Look into his eyes. You can see.

Yesterday turned out to be a postcard perfect day so we started off with a bike ride over the bridge to explore the south end of the island. That beach is called Coquina and there is about a mile of beach with a great paved walking trail through the trees along side of the beach. At the end is the bridge that connects to another island called Long Boat Key. We plan on exploring it today. Here is a video we shot at the end of the island.



We got back from our bike ride in time to make lunch and head out to spend the afternoon sitting on the beach. The sand is white, very fine and is cool to the touch. It almost looks like powdered sugar. We hung out on the beach until 6:30. With sun starting to set, you know me, I had to take a few pictures.

Cortez, Florida

It was a bit windy when we awoke on Thursday morning but we still wanted to go out for our morning exercise session. The beach is only a mile away so we decided to cross the bridge and explore the island of Bradenton Beach. While we were crossing the bridge I couldn't help but take this picture to show you how windy it was. I had to hold onto Reta tight so that she wouldn't become a human kite.

While on the bridge we spotted a few dolphins playing around with their food. I tried to shoot a video of the dolphin tossing a fish around. It's interesting to point out that there was a sea gull swooping down trying to steal the fish that was tossed around. That is the full zoom on my camera but hopefully you get the idea.

When we finally hit the beach the wind was even stronger. Now remember, this is the Gulf of Mexico and normally there aren't any waves. Look at the size of those waves! You can surf on them. Surprisingly, there wasn't anybody on the beach.

On our walk back we decided to do the touristy thing and check out some of the local shops. We headed into this store called "Sea Hagg" because the outside just looked to interesting. It had everything that would normally wash up on a beach and then some. It was like walking into an antique yard sale that your eclectic uncle would hold.

While shopping, I found this lovely Sea Hagg that I purchased and took home.
What do you think? Nice, uh?

Even though it was a crappy day I decided to go for a swim. Here I am free diving with some sea life.
The weather forecast for Friday is sunny and 75 so we are planning on an early bike ride followed by a nap on the beach. Here is a picture we took when we first arrived in Cortez this past Tuesday. Nice and sunny.

Have a great GOOD FRIDAY!

Version 2.0

Since our trip to the Bahamas is over, we are back and with a new look! This is version 2.0

Road Hazard is parked a mile from Bradenton Beach with sunshine all around. This is in contrast to the hard wind and rain that descended on us early this morning. This entire area had been under Severe Wind Advisories all last night in preparation of the storm that has affected most of the east coast today. Let me settle into my lazy boy as I bring you up to speed on the happenings from the last few days.

First of all I would like to congratulate my friends at CDR for coming up with the most creative answer to the Trivia Picture that I posted. If you remember it was of a sign that hung over a bar in Marsh Harbor. It had the letters IITYWYBTHAD. Please see their answer on the comment for March 16th. The correct answer is:

If I Tell You Will You Buy The House A Drink?

When the bartender told me, my initial reaction was...NO. I don't need to know that bad. Oh wait, I get it.

This past Monday we spent the entire day on Sanibel Island. If you have never been there it is a very beautiful beach. We always heard that Sanibel Island is the "Shell Capital of the World". Well, now I know why. When you are walking on the beach you see nothing but shells of every shape, size and color. Piles of them are washed up along the shore.

The island is mostly residential with only a few strip malls where you can find several restaurants and shops. There are bike paths everywhere so it is a very pedestrian/bike friendly island. After one and a half days on the island we felt that we had seen everything. The light house on the southern end is a beautiful spot to explore. If you enjoy Kite surfing this seems to be a popular location.

Monday night took us to a restaurant called "Jackaranda" because we heard that the live entertainment was something you had to see to believe. My old co-worker, Stuart, and his family from Maryland are in Sanibel Island for the week to get away from the cold weather. It was perfect timing to spend some time with them. They had been telling us about this two person band that would be playing at Jackaranda that night. These two polish performers sing, play the electric piano, flute and electric violin. The best part is when Paul would play his flute while he walked around the bar. Having been told of his habits before hand it was easy for me to "nudge" him over our way and play his flute for the ladies.

You can tell by Suzie's reaction that they really enjoyed this. Of course there are a few more pictures of Paul playing in their face, literally. We closed the bar down that night and had a great time catching up, drinking some cold adult beverages and watching the entertainment. Nothing like listening to a good Lionel Richie song with a polish accent.

The next day was a little rough to get up and started but it was well worth the headache and dry mouth. Nothing like driving 60 feet of metal down the highway at 65 mph with a hangover. I don't recommend it. We are planning one more night out with Stuart and Suzie in Sarasota. They are stopping there for the weekend on their drive home.

We are now in Cortez for a week and look forward to exploring this area. The island has more activity and the views are just as incredible as anywhere on the west coast of Florida. On our morning exercise we had to stop and watch these dolphins swimming around the bridge that connects Cortez to Bradenton Beach. They were feeding on small fish and would toss these fish around like a cat plays with a ball of yarn. Amazing to watch. I will download a short video of them playing, tomorrow.

The day has turned into a beautiful afternoon so I will leave you until tomorrow.

Sanibel Island

Sorry that I haven't written anything in a couple of days.
We are in Sanibel Island with limited internet access. Check back tomorrow.

Leather and Chaps

Not a whole lot happening during the day Saturday. I decided to temp fate and try getting a hair cut again. What's my chances that I would run into another famous Fisherman? Reta had pointed out a Barber Shop on one of our drives out. What the hey, lets give it a try. I walked in and there was only one person working and he was already busily clipping someones bald head. I sat patiently and watched as he made sure he got every last hair off this man's head. Then he moved to his ears and would take the clippers and move them around to get every protruding hair from his ears. To top it off he pinched the guys nose and clipped every hair sticking out. I hope he's going to clean those clippers. Finally the moment arrived. My turn. I sat in the chair and proceeded to tell him that I wanted a "light trim". LIGHT TRIM? I DON'T DO LIGHT TRIM. I ONLY USE CLIPPERS. He continued to rant on about how would he know what a light trim is if the hair is still growing. Finally another Barber showed up and I asked if it would be better that I go with his co-worker. Yes was his disgruntled reply. This other guy turned out to be much better and pulled out a comb and scissors to start trimming my hair. The conversation was light until I asked about the "No See Um's". The little mosquito type bugs that will eat you alive. I asked it they bite for blood or just bite. Uh Oh. This got everyone in the joint (lets call it discussing very loudly) into the conversation. Each had their own opinion and knew he was right and was determined to convince the others. What have I done. When I left they were still going at it. Who would have known. From famous fisherman to No See Um's.

I wanted to go out and sport my new head piece so we decided to go up the road to downtown Fort Myers and check out the water front. (There is Fort Myers "city" and Fort Myers Beach. Two different city's about 1/2 hour apart. One is on the river and the other, of course, the beach.) We got there and were pleasantly surprised to find a Biker Rally happening in Historic Downtown. Great time walking among the leather and chaps, checking out the different bikes and bikers and listening to the live bands. Lets just say that Reta and I stood out like two Mexican jumping beans in a pile of white rice. We had on dress shirts and nice pants while the majority had jeans and leather.

We found this neat roof top bar with a beautiful view of the two bridges that cross over into North Fort Myers. After getting some dinner at a Tapas Restaurant we did one final walk through the rally and headed home.

With much sadness we are in our final 2 days at Marsh Harbor. This entry will end our journey to the Bahamas. The last day found us doing a couple loads of laundry and cleaning up the boat. We also had to take apart the dinghy and haul it up onto the deck of the sailboat to be secured. It went better than expected. We packed our bags and were ready to go. The next morning the Taxi driver that Deb had made friends with would be coming by at 8:15 to pick us up. At 7 we started to hear a lot of thunder. I poked my head out the hatch to see these two amazing sites. The look out to the west was of these furious storm clouds moving towards us and when I looked to the east it was one of the most beautiful sunrises I have ever seen.

Hard to believe this is the same day, same moment. Within 10 minutes the wall of water was on us and it rained like I thought we were on Noah's ark. Send in the animals! By 8 the weather was clear and by 8:15 we were in her taxi on our way to the airport. Of course the plane was delayed for an hour because of the weather but we didn't care. The flight home was uneventful and yes, Reta slept most of the trip while I was busy taking pictures and watching the pilots flipping switches and turning knobs. We arrived in Fort Lauderdale and it felt like we had landed in Anchorage Alaska. Cold, cold, cold. Only thing left to do was see if Road Hazard survived without us.

Looking back at all the pictures and recounting the memories has made us realize more that we are very fortunate to have been able to experience a trip like this. Thanks again Deb and Charlie for making it possible. I know we weren't the most experienced crew and we would get our port side mixed up with starboard. No, wait, that was the Captain who got mixed up. But, we did learn a lot about knots, sailing and boats. We saw islands that we never would have seen on our own. We experienced another way to travel and most importantly we had a chance to spend time with you two and truly have a great time, laughing, talking and eating. Thank you. When is the next trip?

Trivia question...

This sign was hanging up at the local watering hole in Marsh Harbor. Can anyone tell me what the letters stand for?

IITYWYBTHAD

I had to ask the bartender. I'll give you the answer on Monday.

Close call

With another beautiful day shaping up early yesterday morning we decided to go out on the water again. This time we wanted to explore the small creeks, rivers, mangrove trails and see some manatees. If you have never been kayaking in mangrove tree's before, it can be fun but if you don't have a good sense of direction it probably isn't the place for you. I say this now after a close call. All was going fine, (that's usually how most stories start) we saw osprey dive bombing into the water going after fish, picked up star fish and followed a dolphin around. After about 2 1/2 hours into our expedition we started to pick our way home. We turned down one way and found a dead end. Lets try over this way, dead end. This way, dead end. It's at this point where you can either freak out and make situations worse or remain calm and think your way through. We started to backtrack, mentally, to try and remember the features and landscape. We finally realized that we had turned left after a small clump of mangroves when we should have gone straight. Whew, back on track but now we need to hurry now because these big, rolling, dark gray storm clouds are moving in pretty quick. We still had another 45 minutes ahead of us and what if we get lost again? Right about now is when we started joking and saying how a situation like this can turn into a movie or a short story in Readers Digest. I told Reta that if they had to pick a movie star to play me we all know who it would be, right? Go ahead and say it, Ray Romano.
The story ends up just fine because we made it back with 1/2 hour to spare before the skies couldn't hold back anymore and dumped water that, at times, come down side ways . Hopefully it made for a good story!

After a quick shower we headed off to find some food but found a lot of traffic instead. The traffic down in this area is terrible. I don't know if it could be because most drivers have an AARP card in their wallet or because they have traffic lights everywhere that aren't timed to work together. Eventually we stumbled on this restaurant called "Bahama Breeze". They made some killer frozen island drinks and it gave us a chance to talk about our trip their and remember all the places we had been.
As promised, here is the video of us scuba diving. We were just chill'in on the bottom and checking out the fish. You can see how they come right up to you. The other lady that went with us looks like she was trying to doggy paddle her way around. Captain Keith would tell her to stop moving her hands like that. Three reasons; 1) You could knock someones mask off that comes up next to you 2) you could slam your hand into the very sharp coral and 3) honey, you look stupid. Enjoy.


After our dive we decided to head back over to Guana Cay for an afternoon at "Nippers". It turned into a beautiful afternoon with very little wind. Nippers was rocking when we rolled in. The crowd was getting into dancing and of course, drinking. Funny how the more you drink the better you tell yourself that you can dance. It was very entertaining to watch. By the end of our stay two couples had been drinking too much and decided to hold a yard sale on the beach and took all their cloths off and displayed them while they continued into the water for a game of "what's behind door number 1". Another thing about drinking, you lose your depth perception because these people must have thought that they were really far away from everyone. Not so.
There was another fellow who thought he was an Olympic gymnast because he took off running and jumped over this railing thinking that the pool was on the other side. Let's just say he missed the pool by about 10 ft. He had a nice red mark across his back as a souvenir to remember his performance.
We only had another full day left in Marsh Harbor and the next day would mean more laundry and cleaning up around the boat.

Come on Doggy!

Fort Myers is finally producing weather that we can get used to for being winter. After milling around RH yesterday morning we finally got our act together and decided to ride our bikes over to the beach and spend the afternoon working on our Coppertone hue. It's a little over a mile to the beach parking lot where we lock up the bikes. Again, the line of cars to go over the bridge was longer than we could see. We just whizzed right past them on our bikes and found a spot to lock up against a tree. Have you ever had a sick feeling in your gut right after you do something? Well, as I heard the "click" of the locking mechanism engage on my bike lock, Reta asked me "Do you have the key for that lock?". Oh O. I thought you had it, no I thought you had it. Tear the backpack apart, turn pockets inside out and look everywhere for this key. Do we have a hacksaw or bolt cutters that we can get the bikes undone? How are we going to explain it to the cops when they see us hacking away at this cable? Do you want to walk the mile back to look for the key in RH and walk back the mile? We decided to go chill on the beach and later we would walk back and get the pickup with some tools and come back. It's hard to sit there when you have this problem looming over your head so I decided to walk back over to the bikes and just look around. The gods were smiling down at me yesterday because after several minutes of cussing myself out and looking around, there it was. This little shinny, bright metal caught my eye in the tall grass next to the bikes. Hallelujah! The Key! It must have fallen off when I was stringing the cable through the bikes and didn't see it. Feeling on top of the world we decided to push our luck yesterday evening and drive half hour down the road to "Naples/Fort Myers Greyhound Track". Florida is known for its dog track so we decided to check it out.

These dogs are so fast. I tried to take pictures of them but all I got was a beautiful blur. After watching several races and studying the program we decided to try our hand at putting some money on them.

We each placed our bets and walked back to track side to cheer our doggy on. There was more at stake on race #9 because we each had $2 riding on our dogs. We each picked two dogs to finish first and second. We both got only one dog right and walked away feeling good that we were at least close. What a fun and entertaining night.

Marsh Harbor is a great little city to explore. Very safe to walk around and the people are very friendly. Everywhere you walk people always look at you, smile and say hello. We discovered how the rich live in Marsh Harbor. Their homes sitting atop a hill, over looking the clear blue water, with big cars in the driveway. On one of these hills we were amused by a street sign that you would never expect to find here, of all places.

Nice to see that someone has a good sense of humor.

The following day we had scheduled our scuba diving trip and we awoke with some excitement and nervousness. We haven't been scuba diving close to a year so we were trying to remember all the necessary steps needed to put your gear on. Finally on the boat, Captain Keith took us out to a reef and put us at ease by refreshing our memories with the necessary procedures and steps. He is also going to dive with us to give us a tour of the area, swim through some caves and show us the fish. Here he is before we get into the water, showing us what to do if this fish approaches us.

No, just kidding, they weren't that big. Do you really think I would get in the water if this came up to greet us? Our first dive took us to only 35 feet but as soon as we jumped into the water it was if you had jumped into an aquarium. Clear visibility with plants and fish everywhere. They were just as curious of us as we were of them. Getting the group together on the bottom, Captain Keith took off and we all followed single file. He would stop occasionally to see if we were still alive and point out some fish or coral. By the second dive that day we all felt more relaxed and at ease. Mistake. Never let your guard down because the shock could kill you if you're not expecting it. Case in point. Second dive, life is great. Reta and I are trying our hand at sign language to talk about this cute little fish swimming around us. As I am signing to her I see this dark shadow move over her shoulder. My eyes must have gotten as big at the local star fish because I didn't have to point. Reta quickly turned to look. There it was, about 5 feet in length and a mouth with more teeth than a boat with Cubans heading to Miami. The thoughts running through my head were to stay still and pretend to be dead. No wait, that's if a bear attacks, what the hell am I supposed to do? Relax. Captain Keith is right there next to us and he's calmly taking pictures of this thing. But wait, he's getting closer! This shark swam right between our little group huddled together at a depth of 45 feet. For the shark it was like going through a Drive-Thru window at your local McDonald's. I'll have a marga-Reta to start with followed by some spicy Brazilian meat. Supersize that for me and oh, that's To-Go. OK, so nothing exciting happened. We had such a great time the first day that as soon as our feet hit the dock we ran over to the dive shop and signed up to do it all over again the following day. The next day we had 4 sharks swimming above us when we were at 70 feet. No problem. It was a great time and thankfully Captain Keith took some pictures.

Tomorrow I will upload a video that he shot of us sitting on the bottom while we checked out some curious fish.