Day Three in Florida

Tuesday, March 13:  Do not be deceived by the awesome beauty of the sky and seas in these pictures! Doesn't it look like it is 83 degrees, humid, wonderful warm? WELL, let me tell you--it was COLD! I believe it was 43 degrees as we got up this morning and it barely climbed to 58 the entire day. Of course, we were out on the water (duh) and it FELT colder out there. I am not complaining--just telling you what it was like!

Meet Hank (above). He is ONE of the many resident pelican that OWN the docks where David puts in the "Beth Andrea" when he is in this area of the Intercoastal. He was scratching his chest in the top picture, but noticed my camera and then behaved himself in the next picture.

David and I decided against going out into the Gulf today. The wind was pretty strong, it was bitingly cold, the waves were "up" ... so David decided to give me a little tour of some of his favorite places along the water. 

 Almost every time we reached a bridge entrance or exit, there was a welcoming committee awaiting. Sometimes large, sometimes small ... but it was pretty fun to see the birds all lined up like this.

 I can't name you all of the bridges--in fact I can only name ONE of the bridges we went under (but that bridge was tomorrow, not today). There are an abundance of bridges in the Tampa area because there are islands and peninsulas and harbors and bays EVERYWHERE. It's competely beautiful.

These are just a few of the many 100's of mansions we saw along the waterway. WHAT DO THESE PEOPLE DO FOR A LIVING?!! Are you kidding me? Yikes.  

I'm going to just run pictures by here ... just know that the entire time we were out on the water, David and I enjoyed just being together. We relaxed. We got caught up with each other's lives. And we ate our lunch most days right on the boat. We (with Carol's help) would pack a cooler with sandwiches, fruit, water, and snacks and be all set for the day. It was NICE. 

I love sailboats, don't you?!! 

Since there is NO bathroom on board, now and again we HAD to make a pit stop and find one. It wasn't difficult. We stopped at this McDonald's on Tuesday and got very RELIEVED in the premises!

 I need to find the names of these exotic birds--they were everywhere! I suppose they are not considered exotic in Florida; but they certainly do not come up to Michigan (at least I have not encountered them here).

 We watched the pelican fish for the longest while. It is so fun to see them circling from above and then do an absolute 80mph nose dive and come up with a fish in their beak! They are super good at fishing!

Our return home time to eat dinner was supposed to be 6:00 but we pushed it back to 6:30. Andrew and Alison were going to come by and eat dinner with us again and 6:30 worked fine with them too.

 This is David docking the boat--which he does all by himself--he's really good at it. Me? Well, I watched and unloaded supplies ... I'm not very good with ropes, etc.

 Every single time the boat goes out, it gets pretty salt covered. David religiously bathes the boat after each excursion.

 It's a process, but it certainly is necessary in order to preserve the boat. David does it without a single complaint. He is a true boater.

 Here are a few snaps of the boat. It's a pretty little thing, isn't it? I loved being out on it! It has an inboard engine, non-propeller, which is difficult for me to get my brain around. In theory, you can get EIGHT people all together and go out and about. David says SIX is about all they have had and he prefers that number to eight. This week there were only TWO of us!