April 8th Sat- Rookery Bay Laurie n Stephan

Pica : There are Osprey nests everywhere. Very pretty bird. Many of the nests have large chicks in them practicing to fly. They are also very noisy. Reminds me of the animosity some have for the bird in RI, due to the focua generated around protecting their nesting grounds etc. Similar animosity here toward the Manatee. People that like going fast on the water generally consider them slow, non thinking blobs of fat. I love em.

Walter in his skiff

Me fileting our gift from the Dad and 2 boys yesterday

Stephen and Laurie wishing us "safe trip"

I took a pic of BT and Dad from the inside out of the Twin Spirits Cat

Laurie making Frozen Banana sorbet

The VICTORIA and TWIN SPIRITS at Rookery Bay

This morning started out quite cloudy and cool. It is not even close to cool now. It's 1:41 and the sun is blazing down on us. Can't walk around on the deck barefoot unless you hose it down first. We wanted warm.......we got it.

Earlier I was sunning and reading on the bow. A center console boat decked out for fishing came by and it appeared to be a father and his 2 sons. The Dad called out," Beautiful boat". Which I responded of course,"Thank you". Gary came out of the cabin and this all led to a very nice conversation. We talked for about 15 minutes part of which covered fishing licenses. I'm itching to fish, but without a license I'm taking a chance of getting like a 50 dollar ticket. The conversation started coming to a close. Out of the blue I asked, " Do you have any fish that you'd be willing to sell?" The Dad said," oh sure. give em that one there." One of the boys handed us a plastic market bag with a small red snapper and a larger flounder, both needing to be cleaned but that was no problem at all. I promptly got to work filleting the prize (hence the picture) and storing them in a baggie in the cooler.

Stephen and Laurie on the "Twin Spirits" Catamaran (cat) invited us over for dinner last night. We had a very nice time and the food was organic and delicious. We brought a Jean Marc salad to contribute. When dinner was over Laurie went below to make dessert. We heard the food proccessor go on and a few minutes later we were presented with a lovely frozen bannana sorbet. We also had our choice of organic ginger snaps, Newmans oreo type cookies and or midnight moo choco syrup to put on top. It was delicious. The rest of the evening was lovely and we are glad to have met them. They are weather stuck in this anchorage till possibly Tues. They stopped by and checked on our plans. Gary is listening to the radio now. (singing) Should I stay or should I go...........

Well that answers that. We go. Dispise traveling on the weekend. All the maniac weekend boaters are in abundance. Some have been considerate. For that we are truely grateful. We have several alarms on the boat. There are alarms to tell us if the inverter is overloaded, we have alarms to tell us Propane has leaked, bulge pump alarms and one I just heard for the first time today. The one that tells us fuel has leaked into the bilge. We intensley dislike it when fuel gets into the bilge. The one really dreaded emergency you don't want to have on a boat is a fire.
Gary is adamant about shutting things off. I have a terrible habit of forgetting things on. However this time after a thorough inspection, bringing the boat to as close to a halt as she'll go in the middle of the busy channel, we found nothing. Could be a faulty alarm. Lets hope.

Looks like it may be a faulty censor. Either way it scared the H E double toothpicks out of us. We are now anchored for the duration at the Goodland FL anchorage. Just shortly after arriving Walter motored up in his skiff. Gary noticed right away that Walter knew how to talk "right". With a heavy Boston accent he told us that he was a retired Mass State Trooper. He spent some volunteer time down in Louisiana in the clean up rebuild effort. We found him very ineresting and a wealth of local info. Thanks Walter its people like you that make the world a better place.

Gary and I went into town to get a bite for dinner and to try to get some ice. On Walters referral we went to STANS for a beer and a burger. Eddie was invited to sit with us outside and he enjoyed the sweet potato fries I shared with him. The waitress was very nice and told us to just go ahead and fill the bucket we had brought with ice. Very handy. The burger was big and excellent. We brought Brittany one back to the boat. The bill was about 40 bucks.

We started back toward the boat where Brittany was, and I noticed a guy in a skiff circling it. I told Gary I was watching "this guy". As we got closer we waved back and forth and come to find out Terry's from NY. Well thats all Gary had to hear. This left me holding Brittanys dinner on my lap and her waving at me from 100 yards away. She could see her dinner, it was close but yet so far.

Sleep came fast for us, but not for Brittany. She was told to extinguish all communications by 10:30. She woke me up trying to be quiet at 12:30. Tomorrow no communications will take place till I say so.

The weather has us concerned. This front and that front, thunderstorms, hail and lightening
We'll check it in the morning. For now..........

Keep us in your prayers, your in ours
XXOO
Victoria's Perspective