Saturday, February 28, 2015

Life is continuing to be busy here in paradise!  Yesterday we went out fishing again and it was a little rough out there.  We did not get a fish, not even a bite!  It was rough coming back in through the cut.  I definitely prefer perfect smooth ocean water when I go fishing.  That is pretty much never going to happen though.

We went to Mike and Linda's for dinner.  Susan and Joe, Brian, and Pattie and Tom were there too.  Boy, did we have a feast!  Brian brought a lot of tuna that he caught in the morning.  I brought a spinach salad and chips and dip.  Susan brought a yummy salad.  Pattie brought a special dip and veggees and Linda made enchiladas and rice and all kinds of good stuff.  We had rum punch of two varieties and partied until late!  The decision was made for all of us to go fishing in the early morning hours.

This morning we headed out extra early as it was a serious tournament to see who could catch the most fish or at least a Wahoo.  We weren't out there very long and Richard got a Wahoo on the line.  We were excited!  He brought it almost all the way to the boat when it somehow bit off the line.  What a bummer!  He was putting a new lure on when I discovered Mike and Linda were stopped yet again in the water.  We had noticed this several times and thought they had seaweed on their lines or something.  I motored over near them while Richard was working and Mike made a distress signal.  They were dead in the water!!!!  The ocean had huge swells and waves and they had no power!  We got as close as we could to them.  We didn't have a long enough rope to tow them but they did.  The problem was, it was not very big.  Mike kept throwing it and I tried to catch it.  Finally we succeeded and tied them to us.  It was a rough tow but what we were really worried about was getting them through the cut!    Talk about dangerous!!  Brian was there with his boat waiting for us at the cut.  We tried to time it just right with the waves and swells.  We were midway through and the line snapped!!  Horror!!  We of course had to get out of the way and their boat headed to the left with waves and got hung up in the breakers!  They were lurching severely!  How they didn't tip over completely I don't know!  The boat started to get full of water and we all were hollering at them to stay in the boat!
Suddenly, Christian, with SCC races on the scene with a skiff boat and is able to get close enough to toss them a rope and get them out of the breakers.  He saved the day!  People could have died in this situation.  We are all very grateful with the outcome.    We are all hoping the breakers didn't ruin the boat, of course.  They did have a lot of luck to not get much damage!  No one caught a fish!!!

Afterwards we all gathered at the Sunset Cove resort next door to our place and had a big breakfast and talk about how grateful we all are that everyone is ok.     We will all learn from this adventure!

Thursday, February 26, 2015

Today we got up around 5:15 to go fishing again.  We got ready and went out the door and down to the dock.  The wind was blowing very strong out of the south.  Just last night we checked Wind finder forecast and it was supposed to be calm.  The weather just does what it wants to do.  We went back in the house and Richard went back to bed.  The ocean would have been too rough and the cut would have been hard to get out of.  It was disappointing as we had such a good time catching fish yesterday.  We will try again tomorrow.

I made pancakes for breakfast since I had a lot of time to enjoy them.  They were yummy!  I worked a little finessing the beach and relaxed a bit.  Off and on all morning, we got a stray shower.  There must have been a weather system passing over us.  The afternoon was blue sky.  Richard went in the afternoon to look for lobsters with the guys.  They came home empty handed!  They just left again tonight (8:00 P.M.) to try again.  I guess that is the best time to go lobstering.

The weather was good for a bike ride today.  I went around 10:30, which is a later ride for me.  In the afternoon, my hammock called me in and boy was that nice.  I'm reading a good book right now and that hammock is the perfect place to read it.  My day was just so enjoyable.

We ate lunch on the porch and I looked out at the water and there were two turtles!  They were going in opposite directions.  They popped their heads out of the water even!

I have a beautiful cool breeze blowing in through the house this evening on me.  Should be another good sleeping night.

Wednesday, February 25, 2015

Today was a super busy, exciting day!  We got up at 5:30 A.M. to go fishing.  I guess fish like to eat early!  So we get out through "the cut" in the breakers and head to the spot in the ocean that Richard wanted to try to get the big one.  We were out there fifteen to twenty minutes and one of the polls started humming!  OMG!  We had hooked a Wahoo!  It took a long time and a lot of work to reel him in.  I took over control of the boat and Richard brought the fish in.  Talk about exciting!  I was shaking like a leaf by the time this thing was in the boat.  Richard has been wanting to catch a Wahoo for his whole life!!  Boy is he happy!  I thought we would head back after this but we kept fishing.  I couldn't believe it, we hooked another fish!  It was a super giant tuna!  We had our hands full!  Suddenly a giant shark shows up and bit it in half!  I guess the shark has to eat too!  What a morning!  We were back home by 9:00.  Of course, then we had to clean these fish!  That took awhile!  We have at least 10 pounds of meat from these fish!

We ate an early lunch and both of us took a nap.  I was very tired!  Then we headed to the north side to snorkel.  The water couldn't have been more perfect.  I had the very best snorkel of all time!  We swam with a huge turtle, saw the biggest groupers ever.  There were two barracudas that were 7 feet long and a giant shark!  I could go on and on!  Boy, were we lucky to be there to see this!

This evening we entertained guests for dinner and I am very late updating my blog.  Time is just too fast for me.

Yesterday, Richard went fishing for a short while early in the morning to get the boat going.  We had a busy day getting things done around the house and I took my kayak out in the afternoon for a long beautiful ride as the water was spectacular.  After my ride, I layed on the beach and just relaxed.  Last night was Ladies Night so I headed to Little Cayman Beach Resort for dinner with the gals!  We had a great fun time.

Tomorrow the plan is to fish early again.  What a life here in Paradise!

Richard reeling in his big Wahoo.

Here is his big Wahoo.  What a beautiful fish!

Here is the poor tuna.  More than half went to the shark.  He fought like crazy until shark got him.

Hello beautiful, graceful turtle.

Sunrise over the ocean.

Richard bringing in his Wahoo.  

Monday, February 23, 2015

Here we go again!  It sounds like a broken record to say once again how perfect the weather was.  Today was glorious!  Richard went fishing and he caught a Mahi Mahi!  He went with Brian.  We ate fish for supper tonight and was it ever yummy!  Oh my!!  I fixed it on the grill.  I also did baked potatoes and broccoli on the grill.  They finally had nice fresh broccoli in the store.

Our sign is all finished so it is official.  We are the Gecko Shack!

This afternoon Christian was unable to help put the boat in again so super nice Brian helped us.  We had serious trouble with the trailer breaking down on the way.  This can be fixed and we are looking forward to taking the boat out tomorrow.

We ate supper out on the porch again tonight.  This year we seem to be eating most every meal outside.  We sure wouldn't be doing that at home!  

The sunset was so pretty tonight.  Notice the star in the sky.  

Here is the famous sign!  It is kind of hard to read it here.  I will do a close up soon.  It was fun to make.  Natalie helped when she was here.

Sunday, February 22, 2015

Of course, it is a beautiful day in paradise and I am the lucky girl who is here to enjoy it!  Richard and I worked outside this morning for awhile but I took a nice break before lunch.  We know how fortunate we are as it was only 9 degrees at home today and even colder tomorrow.

Richard still doesn't have the boat in the water.  They were going to do it today but the guy who was going to help him works at SSC and they had a fatality at the resort today.  A man had gotten back from diving and then had a heart attack.  Not a good thing to have happen to you on this little island.

This afternoon I took my floaty out and had a nice time relaxing.  Afterwards I layed on my chair and enjoyed just being on the beach.  Where was my beach guy to bring me a drink?  Say a mudslide!!

Saturday, February 21, 2015

Friday, yesterday was a super work day here at out house.  At 7:30 A.M. LeRoy Brown arrived with 30 tons of sand for our driveway and road.  He brought a front loader along and as they dropped the sand he spread it down the length of our drive.  We shoveled and raked our way through it to make it nice and smooth.  Boy, did we work!  We love the finished product!

We managed to have a little afternoon time left to wash our new truck and wax it.  This is Mardi Gras weekend here on the island so we needed to have a clean truck to go out Friday evening.  Dinner this year was at Pirates Point Resort with a live band for dancing following.  They really have good bands here and everyone gets on the "floor" to have a good time to the beat!!  We had a good group of friends to celebrate with and the food was spectacular.  We got home late!

Saturday weather was perfect to work on some little outside projects and sit on the beach.  After lunch Richard announced ISU was playing a game that we should watch at Iggy's.  We decided to do that and immediately got a call from Mike and Linda.  The parade for Mardi Gras started at 4:00 and they asked us to do a float with them.  They have a perfect vehicle for the MASH movie/show and Linda is an artist.  She transformed their SUV and we came up with costumes with materials on hand.  Boy!  We had fun!  I made crutches out of brooms and foam, towels wrapped around arms and legs were casts. Heads were bandaged and blood was spray painted on us.  I carried an IV pole made of a water bottle and rope and old broom handle.  Mike was the doctor chasing after "hot lips" from the show.  We had the music playing from the show.  FUN FUN FUN!  We won second place in the residence float category and first place in the group category.  The theme of our Mardi Gras this year was Hollywood.  There was a big Casablanca float, a Wizard of Oz float and a Bollywood float.  The Hitchcock float was awesome.  Needless to say, we didn't watch the game!  ISU won anyway!

I made a late supper of tacos and we are both tired and going to bed early.  Tomorrow will be another big day I am sure.

Trucks and sand arrive.

I'm barefoot'n in the sand while I work!

Finished product!

Our lovely entrance.  That big bamboo pole on the left will be the site of my new sign!

Richard and I with Linda and Mike at Mardi Gras.

Some of the Mardi Gras crowd after parade.

This is our driveway entrance when we purchased the property.   What a lot of work!  Compare to above photo. 

Thursday, February 19, 2015

This morning we woke up to rain!  What a surprise!  We had a lot of things to do this morning so the rain fit right into our schedule.  We needed to go to the bank.  When we got there they were closed.  Turned out their plane was late as the windshield on the plane broke.  Good heavens!  We seem to be having issues with our plane this year.  It turned out LeRoy Brown was on the same plane.  We were waiting for him to do our sand delivery.  He arrived and started working on Johnny's road first and tomorrow at 7:30 am he will be here in our driveway and road.  How exciting!  Things are coming together here.

We got our tickets to Mardi Gras.  The dinner is tomorrow night and the parade is Saturday.  Should be fun!

Today the tide went way out.  I took pictures of it as it was so alarming!  I don't believe it has ever gone out this far before!  What is going on??

This shot is to the south.  All the brown is seaweed that washed in.  The water is normally way up near the beginning of the kayaks.

This is to the north.  The water should be way up where the seaweed got deposited.   The seaweed doesn't usually come in either.