Our trip to the Keys was marvelous, but hard on my bracelets. First, I realized my sweet little beaded one I’d bought the last time we were down disappeared from my arm. All I can figure is that I accidentally pulled it off when I tucked my hands inside my long sleeved sun shirt. Surely if the elastic had broken, I’d have had beads in my shirt. As soon as I noticed it was missing , I retraced my steps at the gas station and the bait shop, but didn’t find it. I’d restrung the original on elastic bead string, adding the glow-in-the-dark bead I’d found at our campsite. Ah, well, I hope someone else is enjoying now.
When we got back to our house, I realized the one made for me by Rani, mom of our old congregation’s pianist Brenda, was coming unstrung. Fortunately, I have all the beads, including the one I stepped on in our dining room, which was amazingly not sucked up by our Roomba.
In between jewelry loses, it was a good trip. We were supposed to be in the cabin Saturday, but that was overwritten by the celebration of Sean’s life in Fort Lauderdale where we saw old homeschooling friends, Grant’s coworkers from his IFAS days, and members of our previous UU church. Doubly poignant, both to remember Sean and to know we are unlikely to see most of these people ever again, as we are all scattered around the country now. We spent the night with Susan and Doug, because Patten was flying to Croatia for his job Saturday night.
We had lunch at Keys Fisheries where Grant ate his usual lobster Reuben, and I did my part to save the reefs by having lion fish tacos. We returned there the next night for sunset, but the upstairs bar was too crowded to find a seat. We carried our beers down to a picnic table by the charter boats. We missed participating in the daily toast to the sunset, but had a better and more comfortable view. A couple of manatees were feeding 50 yards off shore. Perhaps that’s what we were seeing in addition to rolling tarpons and turtle snouts in the bay behind the cabin.
Tuesday we bought shrimp at the bait shop (still no bracelet) and shore fished north of cabin 6. We had tried under the US 1 bridge, but just lost tackle snagged on the rocks. I was pleased my muscle memory of baiting hooks with shrimp returned. Casting not so much, even though I’d practiced a few times from our cabin’s dock with a spoon the day before. It takes shoulder muscles I haven’t used much even with my weightlifting. I quickly reeled in a nice 12” snapper. From looking at pictures in the magazine I’d picked up at the bait shop, I identified it as a lane snapper. Into the cooler it went. I caught another, this one a measured 8”, the legal minimum. Grant pulled in a 14” one, so we decided we’d caught enough for dinner. While Grant filleted them, I sent a picture to Patten who thought the fish might be mutton snapper, 18” minimum. Oops. The difference is the color of the pectoral fins, not the overall coloring of the fish. A $5000 difference. I think Patten’s comment that the game wardens would understand was sarcasm.
Grant had brought spaghetti casserole, so I froze the fillets and cooked them when we got home. Absolutely delicious.
Wednesday we packed up, and rather than reeling in more maybe illegal snapper, just to release them, we gave the rest of our shrimp to our neighbor who fished from a kayak like mine. I’m determined to get that thing in the water this spring. On the way home, we stopped by Patten’s to pick up the boat battery for our electric motor. It took the two of us to just get it into the truck. Should be fun getting it to the boat. Now we have no excuse not being out on the lakes near our house.
I only griped some about having to come home a day early so I could attend the Tree Board’s strategic plan creation workshop. Okay, maybe just a little more than that.
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