Sand Key

Recently we took a daysail out to the reef to go snorkeling.  Had a blast, although seeing a shark sent Jamie into a mild panic attack.  Understandably, I suppose.  Sharks do look scary, and this was Jamie's first face to face encounter with one.  (Well, other than feeding them in the little Key West Aquarium, where, truthfully they seem more like pets.) But the "usually harmless" 5-6 ft. nurse shark didn't give us a second glance as he shot off in the other direction.  

Barracudas, on the other hand, seem to like to hang around, stealthily checking us out, and frankly, I'm more nervous about them than I am sharks.  They are stalkers, and seem to always be watching you, much like in a haunted house where the eyes in the painted portraits follow your every move....<shiver>  

Anyway, here are some pics of our jaunt, with some commentary from the boys.

Dad and me snorkeling.

 One day we decided to sail the boat out to Sand Key, about a mile away.  We wanted to go there to snorkel.  Here are some picures from our experience. - by Brady and Jamie
                                   

I (Jamie) am cranking the winch.

Brady is putting up the sail.

On our way.  We are sailing now.

This is the lighthouse at Sand Key.  They have the lighthouse here on the reef so people don't run into it at night.  There are mooring balls set up around the reef for boats who want to use them so they can go snorkeling.

I snorkeled all around the lighthouse.

There were fish all over.

A barracuda was hanging out around the bottom of our boat.  Some little fish were hanging around him, maybe cleaning him.  He seemed really curious about us.  I (Brady) got really close to him.  I could have reached out to touched him, but I didn't!

Close up of a barracuda.

Here's some of the fish we saw.

A blue parrot fish.  They eat coral.

It's fun to stand up front like this.  Dolphins came and swam next to our boat.

You can see the reef here.  It looks kind of yellowish.  We put up a red dive flag so other boats know we are diving and don't run over us.

This is us leaving the reef.  We had a great day.

Celebrity Dolphins

Flipper, and friend.

We see dolphins every day.  They are simply delightful, and we love seeing them. There is a pod of dolphins that seems to like to hang out near where we are anchored, and in fact we have come to be able to identify some of the members.  For example, there’s one we call “Crooked Fin”, whom we assume is the mom of “The Baby One”. 

Crooked Fin.

And there are many others.  They come and go in groups of 3 or maybe 5, and then sometimes we see a lone wolf flying solo.  Recently one of these singletons swam by and leapt straight up at least 10 feet in the air, and then disappeared. What a sight.

We are not alone in our love fest for the bottle-nosed ones.  

In fact, almost every day dolphin-watching charter boats hover just about 100 yards from us, hoping for a chance to glimpse these creatures.    And most days, the tourists get their chance, and we can hear the squeals of pleasure and see the pops of cameras flashing.  

But, I must admit....we have started to take the pelagics a little bit for granted.  One of us may notice that there are dolphins about, and sound the call: “Dolphins!”.  It used to be that this brought one and all running to watch the spectacle.  But lately I’ve noticed that we are all a bit slower to hop-to.  “Yah, yah, another dolphin.....zzzzzzzzzz.   I’m in the middle of a good passage here in my book...”  Sad.  But true.  We’ve become jaded dolphin watchers.

I’ve heard that dolphins might be telepathic.  Or magical.  Or maybe they are just incredibly full of their celebrity selves, craving the papparrazi love much like a Kardashian.  They must have some super-natural powers because somehow they apparently noticed that we were losing interest, and as a result figured they needed to pull out all the stops (a kind of dolphin wardrobe malfunction, perhaps?) to pull us back into their world.  And so they showed up at our boaty doorstep and literally swam circle around us.  They swam upside down along our rail and showed their bellies.  They giggled with each other and eyed us as we squealed at their antics.   

They played beside us long enough for us to get out the cameras and snap away.  And we will all come running quickly the next time, hoping for the same kind of personal attention.  Did they know that their photos would end up here on the blog for the world (or at least a few of our friends) to see? Maybe they did.  No doubt they are hoping we just spell their names right.  

Can I have a belly rub?

Our dolphin infested waters.

Showing off, right off our port side.

Fin.

Countdown

English: The Bahamas. NASA image created by Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Rapid Response Team, Goddard Space Flight Center. Caption by Michon Scott. Instrument: Aqua - MODIS (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

We are a month out, now.   Airline tickets have been purchased, plans made, and bags are semi-packed.   The last month has been spent going over lists, organizing, planning, purchasing necessary items,  and worrying about what we are forgetting.  Which will undoubtedly be plenty.

And, there's still plenty of work to be done on the boat.  In fact, I'm guessing several weeks will be spent putting things together on the boat before we actually cast off the lines and head off toward the Bahamas.  But that's all ok.  It's all part of the process, and we are doing our best to remember that all this planning and prep is part of the journey. 

Dear friends, please keep in touch via email (pointsbeyondcrew@gmail.com)
We'll be monitoring our email and will write back as often as local wifi makes it possible.

Some History, and The Plan

Almost 20 years ago our first experience with traveling aboard a sailboat ("cruising") began.   It was October of 1993, and we set off from San Francisco on a course of adventure with our cat "Spaz", and pug-dog "Chloe".  We spent about 9 months exploring the coasts of Southern CA, Mexico, Costa Rica, Panama (including the San Blas Islands), Columbia (Isla Providencia),  the Bay Islands of Honduras, and Guatemala.  We had the time of our lives, met some amazing people, and vowed to do it again.  Soon.

Well, the years fly fast.  And before we knew it we had added two sons to the mix.  They grew and started school.  But our plan to "get out there" again never died.  We have a new plan, now.  We will go cruising again in the fall/winter of 2012.  We will start with the Bahamas and then head toward the eastern Caribbean to revisit some of  spots we loved so much the first time around.  But this time we will go as a family of four.  Well, five if you count Sophie the Pug.

The first time around there was no "internet".  No wifi, no cellphones (none smaller than toasters, anyway), and blogging was not yet a word.  But during our 1993 cruise we did keep written record of our adventures and sent them home via "newsletters" that arrived by post (remember that?).  It's still fun to read back over these notes and remember all the fun we had.  In fact, I am going to post excerpts of those old newsletters on this blog to give a little taste of what we experienced back in the day.  Perhaps it will explain why we are so keen to do it all again.

Our Deckhands.

Sophie Sailor Pug

Where the rainbow ends.