Dolphins, and Islands, and Scares, Oh My!

As Wednesday was uneventful, Thursday was quite the opposite. We traveled another 70 miles, and I didn't even have to wear a coat.

Gary still wore gloves and a headband, but the weather quickly headed from "bearable" to "nice."

First the Dolphins....WOW, is all I can say. They were EVERYWHERE!

I'm sure we saw fifty or more during our 5 hours of cruising. The first pod we saw, (I thought it was a gaggle, but Gary said that is geese) we weren't prepared and couldn't get pictures. The second pod we saw, we were able to get pictures and a video.

The video is awesome, but we have to wait until we get home to upload it! They are swimming in the wake of our boat!

Now the Islands...it's time for a boating lesson.

Since we are in the water, everything looks the same and there aren't street signs to tell us where to go. So, we have charts that we follow to get from one place to another.

This was one of our charts today.

See all of the land, and numbers, and markings. We had to navigate through all of that without running the boat into anything except water. At one point, we were cruising along, and felt a little "bump". We had gotten ourselves into 1.8 feet of water, and THAT IS NOT GOOD in a boat!

It was difficult and beautiful - all at the same time. There was an island with about 25 houses on it, just sitting in the middle of no where.

My favorite passage today was the Sebastian Inlet. It looked like Nantucket, but southern! I think I even saw Jillian (inside joke for my friends).

Now for the scares...I don't think the dock should be the scariest thing that you encounter when you are boating down the Intercoastal Waterways. However, today it was.

The dock hands tied us up for the night, and nonchalently said, "when you want to get off your boat, you can just climb up this ladder."

Not paying much attention, we, both, said "okay", and sat down to watch the sunset.

Dinner time rolls around and we decide it's time to get off the boat. (Here's where the OH MY! comes in).

We have to walk down the side of the boat, which is, literally, 4 inches, and keep one foot on the boat while we reach across and put the other foot on the ladder. Gary attached a rope around a part of the dock so he could hold on to it while he "swung" over the water to the dock. Then he helped me across.

Getting back on was even more difficult because it was low tide and the boat was lower than it was when we got off. I would have LOVED to have made a picture but "my life was more important" at that moment.

We have GOT to learn to park in a slip!

Genesis 1:21-22 And God said, "Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the sky." So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living and moving thing with which the water teems, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. God blessed them and said, "Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the water in the seas, and let the birds increase on the earth."