Visitors and more

Hello again to our friends near and far,


We have had a very busy week this week.  Our friends Dorothy and Larry (from Punta Gorda) brought their 5th wheel down to the Keys and are in a park just across the 7 mile bridge from us.  Their friends, Barry and Donna (originally from Wisconsin) brought down their fishing boat.  They were kind enough to include us in a couple of dinners at the RV park but the most fun was the fishing.  The third party or group to join was Steve and Christy (also from Punta Gorda).  They had rented a place a few miles from our boat and they brought down Steve's mom's fast fishing boat.  I wanted to be sure to correct this since we just met Steve's mom and dad who are great folks.


Well we all made a plan to take the boats out fishing.  We all new that Steve and Cristy were the expert fishermen so we all just followed their lead.  Here is a picture of their great boat.

It was a great day out in the Atlantic.   I thought we were flying as the boat is equipped with two 150 horse engines and it can move!  The ocean was lumpy for a while but it got calmer throughout the day.  It was a great afternoon, the other boat with the foursome caught 7 fish and we caught 5 mahi mahi dolphin fish.  Now do not be confused, these were not like the dolphins that look like Flipper, these are a beautiful tropical fish that is delicious to eat.  We were thrilled to have them take us fishing and loved every minute of it.  This is our catch on that afternoon.

These fish in the water are yellow with aqua and green.

Then we took a day off from fishing and took the bus to Key West to hook up with my sister Lonnie.  She was visiting a friend in Naples, and they took the fast boat from Naples to Key West to spend a night and check out Key West.  It was great fun to have lunch with all of them.  Here is a picture of me and my sister Lonnie (boy you sure can tell we are sisters).

This is the whole group (minus Erwin) after we had devoured our yummy lunch.  Erwin was such a good sport to go with me and he was a charmer at lunch.  We explained a lot about cruising the rivers and what it is like to live on a boat.

Erwin and I also capture many of the images of Key West, here are a few to show you what it looks like:

The schooner ship down by the waterfront





This is a banyan tree (the roots grow down from the top)

This is the art museum

This is me standing by the statue

The plaque with the name of the statue

The Famous Conch Train

This is one of many tours throughout town


The last day with all of these great folks was Erwin's day for fun.  Larry drove the boat and he is now officially my hero (I was supposed to drive the boat)  Steve and Erwin went diving, actually they did three separate dives.  The first dive was interesting as Erwin had clipped his camera to his dive suit, but the clip was not secure.  He motioned to Steve that he had lost the camera.  Steve was wonderful and thought quick enough send up a buoy to mark the spot they were in.  It was amazing as they actually went back and located the camera in the Atlantic ocean.  I think that is pretty remarkable.  Since it is an expensive camera and housing, we will always be grateful for Steve's quick thinking.  Here is a picture of Erwin getting all of his gear on.

Here is a couple of the pictures of those two diving.



Here is Steve with his spear gun (the picture below).  Yes, he was spearing fish and trying to teach Erwin how to spear. 



This is one of the fish that Erwin captured with the camera. 

This is one of the hog fish that are very good eating.  Steve and Erwin got hog fish for dinner, yum.



The last dive was on a wreck and those are great havens for the fish.

Here is a picture of Barry, Donna, Dorothy, and Larry back at the 5th wheel. (left to right)  The flash did not work very well, but I promised this group a picture after they had fixed a marvelous meal for us.