My first installment For the new year is a short video of my “Polar Bear Club” dip in the “frigid” waters of Cudjoe Key on Jan. 1, 2013. The “L Street Brownies” have nothing on me, eh?
I;ve been writing about going to Kelly’s in San Diego. The “main event” of our trip was the annual “Early Thanksgiving” celebration. This would be the second year for me. The idea is since most people spend Thanksgiving with family throw a full out Thanksgiving dinner and party and have Thanksgiving with your “family” of friends.
Last years Early Thanksgiving 2011 was a blast. This year Kelly was hosting it. We were there to help, but to make it more of a challenge we all booked ourselves into the San Diego Color Run Team urbanRenewal 2012 Color Run in the morning. We got home around noon looking like kaleidoscopes and scrambled to get things ready for guests arriving at 3 and dinner beginning about 4:30.
As the host we made the Turkey, stuffing, gravy and a Ham. Everyone else brought a side dish or dessert. It all came together perfectly and we even managed to clean up pretty well.
Well into the evening, after multiple rounds of food and dessert and well fortified with various beverages the rented Karaoke machine came out. Early Thanksgiving finished with a great party (even if the roller skates didn’t make an appearance 
. There is video from just before closing time but it will remain locked up ( until I need it as leverage
Great time, awesome people and we’re already looking forward to next year. But first, we double the holiday joy with Melissa and Dallas coming here to the Keys for the regular Thanksgiving next week. Life is sweet.
We just returned from a visit with Daughter Kelly in San Diego. One of our days was spent in the high desert about 90 miles east of San Diego. We got there via Julian which is the home of Julian apples and, of course, Apple Pie. After a quick stop to fortify ourselves we went over the mountain and started dropping down into the desert.
View from the Mountain Road
This particular patch of desert is home to Anza-Borrego State Park. Continue reading
Patrick and kids William and Jessie spent the day with Looe Key Reef Adventures yesterday. We headed offshore in pretty bouncy seas to troll for gamefish. We put in a good effort but the fish were just not cooperating. After a couple of hours we stopped at a deep wreck to drop jigs and bait but then the motion of the boat took it’s toll and Jessie had had enough. No problem! We headed back to the dock, had lunch and went to plan ‘B’. Continue reading
While out fishing yesterday we were woring out way back towards shore and watching the clouds thicken in front of us. By the time we got back to 400 feet of water the northern horizon disappeared in a wall of rain. The radar on our boat showed a narrow band of showers, 4 to 5 miles wide and fairly narrow just hanging from about American Shoals to Looe Key. The cool thing was the southwestern edge of the squall line kept spitting out waterspouts. Continue reading
We are officially into monsoon season here in the Keys. Anytime day or night it can go from perfectly clear to god awful storming in minutes and be over just as quickly. So, the other day out on the boat this suddenly developed.
I was getting ready to beat feet away but then, just a few minutes later it turned into this.
I was glad I wasn’t down cloud in that black section!
It’s just another thing that makes it fun to live here.
I had a diving class and the boat was scheduled to leave at 1:30. About 12:30 I opened the door to start getting my stuff into the truck and this is what I saw in the direction I was heading.
Continue reading
I took Jeff and Lesa offshore in search of Mahi. They are from Wisconsin and while Jeff has fished with me before Lesa had never been offshore fishing. We could not have picked a better day. Sunny with light breezes and almost flat seas. We started out and as usual, dropped the lines in about 300 feet and headed south. We had gone a good distance when a friend called me an told be that they had found fish on weeds at “the wall”. Continue reading
You may have noticed that most of my posts here are about things that happen on the water. But there is a beautiful world here in the Keys underwater that we enjoy playing in.
I decided it was time to refresh and improved my Scuba skills and get some advanced ratings. I signed up for the progression of courses that lead to a Dive Master rating. Where I live many will tell you that there is only one person to train with, Janis (JB) at Underseas in Big Pine Key. I called and scheduled the first course (Advanced) and found out that I would be taking it with Alyssa, a diver who was coming from NJ to take the course with JB. Continue reading
Once a year Vicky comes down from Richmond, VA to visit, hang out and enjoy living by “Keys Time”. Sure, there are the morning email checks and the occasional conference call but in between it’s fishing, diving and catching the rays. This year was no exception. The weather was great, the water clear and the fish cooperating. Continue reading
