Evening cruise

The tide was just right for a cruise out to the Gulf yesterday evening.  Hardly a breath of wind, and warm.  Here are some pictures that attempt to capture the feeling...  Hope you enjoy.

 Heading out into the bayou from the Weeki Wachee River

 Someone's fishing dock.  Property is vacant, with lots of no-trespassing signs.  An ideal spot to build on.  And the dock seems to be a popular place for boats to anchor and fish under.

 Heading out to the flats

 Heading out to sea

 Me, in complete control of the sturdy vessel as the sun sets on the Gulf

 Time to head back in for a refill.  Should probably check the gas too...

Actually, this one was when we were heading out... somehow the order of things became disrupted...

Old Friends; new location!

On Sunday, we drove down to Tampa and picked up Terry Allen and Debbie and headed out to the coast highway to Tarpon Springs.  Karen and I had been there a couple of times, and its the kind of place where you can just wander around, check out the sponge docks, get some pics, poke around in the shops and relax over an authentic Greek cuisine lunch.  Which is exactly what we did.

We stopped at Mama's, where Terry and I chowed down a plate full of fried smelt.  Awesome stuff, and dead simple.  Karen and Debbie enjoyed spanikopida and giros, respectively.  All washed down with cold beer and / or wine.

After enjoying Tarpon Springs, headed back to Tampa and sat out (and fried) on Terry / Debbie's balcony.  The view over Tampa Bay was superb, but the heat, and lack of any breeze, drove us inside to an air-conditioned retreat.

We arrived back in Weeki Wachee just around sundown, and, given the wholesome lunch we enjoyed, opted just to graze of miscellaneous snack stuff before heading of to bed.

All in all, a great day, made even better by being able to spend a few hours with friends from north of the 49th!

I have some pics, but haven't uploaded them yet.  Stay tuned...

March 8/15; hard to believe its been 2 weeks since I last posted.  Time passes quickly in margaritaville!  The truth is that the past couple of weeks have been spent in utter relaxation; a combination of pool-side reading, fishing both from the pier and from the boat, and the more mundane aspects of ordinary life such as grocery shopping.

Last night we enjoyed a full (gibbous) moon.  Here are some shots of our pool with the moon in the background sky, as well as our dock.  Seems that moon really ramps up the mullet!  There is this constant splashing from the canal, and its not unusual to actually see them airborne.  Not sure if they are going after something, or trying to get away!

A few days ago, spent some time taking pictures at the fishing pier at Bayport.  This is typical of many locations around this part of the coast, dedicated primarily to "shore-bound" fishermen.  We came across a couple of women with some 20 plus crab traps here.  They were baiting them with hunks of chicken.  The wrapping suggested those chicken bits had just come from the local walmart; I guess crabs are not fussy.

Also got some nice pics of a Great Blue heron.  Seems the ones down in this area are substantially larger than what we're used to seeing at home.  A beautiful bird!

Tomorrow we are meeting up with my old mate Terry Allen and his lady, Debbie Dixon.  They're staying in Tampa for a couple of weeks, and we'll be meeting up with them for a wee Tiki tour up to the Tarpon Springs area.  Looking forward to that!