7-12-2021 Monday
Today was a busy day. Our plan didn't quite go the way we thought -- a threat of rain was back in the forecast this morning so we delayed our start a little. Bridgette started her day with an early run in the campground (yes, we know she is a little nuts). She said the heat is what stopped her, not the cardio, so she thinks she needs to go a little earlier tomorrow. Joe went up to get more bait, and by 9:15 it seemed safe to head out. We went to a different spot, over by the inlet to the Atlantic Ocean. The water was just a little cooler over here (refreshing), and clearer. The fishing wasn't much better, but a few were caught. But the wildlife was awesome here. As we pulled in, John spotted a bonnethead shark swimming away. He said if you see one, there are usually more in the area. As soon as we got out of the boat, Bridgette and the kids found some brittle star(fish). They carefully picked them up so we could see them.
As we got in the water to begin fishing, Bridgette and the kids explored our island. They spotted a rabbit on the backside of the island.
But then Andrew made the find of the day -- a little seahorse! The kids always have to touch every critter, so Catalina came over to hold it too.
John and I were fishing, Joe took a little time to get started, I think he was re-rigging his line. I had one hit, but missed my fish. A little later, John caught one -- one of those bonnethead sharks he had seen earlier. It put up quite a fight, but he got it in. He loves catching those fish because they do put up such a fight -- it took him a few minutes to land it.
We fished for another hour or so, but the only other fish caught was a catfish by Andrew and a small puffer fish by John (needless to say, Joe and I were skunked again.).
The kids spent most of their time exploring, catching small critters in the butterfly net (until it broke). They saw some sergeant major tropical fish too, I don't know if Andrew caught any of them in his net or not. By the time we left there, they had several specimens in a bucket.
We saw manatees here too. Three swam right past John and Bridgette, and then in front of the boat where I was. I only got a picture of their shadow, but I did see one poke his nose out of the water.
We finally gave up on this spot and moved over to check out a sandbar in the middle of the lagoon. We saw several people in the water here, and there was some seagrass, but it didn't look too promising for fishing -- very shallow. So we played in the water. Catalina started off jumping from the boat into the arms of her dad.
We all got in the water, which was very nice and clear.
Catalina decided to be brave and jump in the water on her own, so that occupied her for a while.
Then everyone cooled off.
When it was time to head in for lunch, Bridgette and Catalina took the bucket of sea critters over to the sea grass bed and set them free.
We got back to camp, had lunch, played Mexican Train with the kids, then took a nap. While we napped, the rest of them went fishing off the back of the boat. Andrew caught a keeper -- mangrove snapper. But John said they probably caught 20 fish in that time, the rest of them small.
Our dinner plan was to boat over to Sebastian for dinner at Capt. Hiram's but a storm was back in the forecast so we drove over. While we were there, it absolutely poured. It's an open-air restaurant right on the lagoon, but they lowered the plastic windows when our table started getting wet.
We had a beautiful blue heron right outside our window that posed for us.
After dinner, we made a trip to Walmart (Bridgette forgot to pack shorts for Catalina, so she only had dresses and leggings to wear, besides her swim suits). Then we stopped for ice cream. Our final excitement of the day was a drive on the Jungle Trail on the way back to camp -- a dirt road through "hammocks of palms and other coastal wetland species." It's 7.8 miles long, but it took us 45 minutes to drive it because we followed John at a speed of about 2 mph (and he made frequent stops). We have driven this trail every time we have been here, but only seen crabs before.
Tonight we lucked out and got to help a turtle across the road.
We saw plenty of crabs too, and John's group saw a snake, but we missed that. And a rabbit. We missed the rabbit but didn't get too excited about that since we have plenty of rabbits in our yard at home.
We have rain forecast again tomorrow, so we will see what the day brings. The forecast changes every time I check the weather on my phone, so it could be anything, anytime.
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