We Splurged

I've really been working too much lately, so Gary and I took time off to drive to the gulf for day trips near our home. It's too easy for me to get into the routine of not taking any time off and that's not good. We thought we'd get the scoop on how folks fish from a pier around here, in hopes we could do some fishing and add to our food source with a recreational activity.


We went to Fort Island Beach very close to us and walked out on the pier. While we were there we ran into a local shore fisherman catching blue crab with his collapsible nets. I talked to him for a while and happily learned some of his secrets of crab fishing. Check in again I might start doing some crab fishing myself.


While I was at the pier I looked down into the water and could see all the creatures of the sea. The water is amazingly clear and as I waited and looked closely I could see a whole world of underwater activity. It was truly amazing and mesmerizing to me. I could see crabs running along the floor of the gulf waters. I was surprised to see they run amazingly fast sideways. I could see stingrays swimming by making their rounds to the crab nets in hopes of getting the crab before the fisherman did. I could see fish small and large swimming in the drifting seaweed and sea grasses.


I thought about the stingray "learning" to swim by the crab nets in hopes of finding crab for food. I thought about how it's easy to think of creatures such as a stingray as being not so intelligent, and yet I saw they have learned to adapt to local ways, learning they can find a crab in a crab net easier than looking for one among drifting seaweed.

On the way home we stopped at a local fishery dock and saw some pelicans roosting on the pier posts sunning themselves. I walked out there to take a photo. As I was engrossed in taking the photo of one, I started to walk away and saw a blue heron standing below the pelican motionless. He blended into the hues of the wood dock so perfectly I had neglected to see him till just the last minute. So I quickly snapped his photo. What a wonderful day we had.


As we were driving home, we stopped and got some fresh fish from a local roadside fisherman. We splurged and bought a fresh Florida spiny lobster tail. Gary and I shared the lobster tail for our Christmas dinner. It was so delicious and the price was very reasonable. What a relaxing Christmas we had this year. I feel refreshed and renewed.

It's cold and rainy today, but no snow like other folks like Tracey and Meredith, all their photos have me envious, but not too much, don't want to do any shoveling that's for sure. Happy day after Christmas everyone.