Happy Birthday Ryan!

For the past week we have had windy conditions nearly every day, culminated by yesterdays 64 mph gusts clocked by one of the boats on our dock and of course rain to go with it! Temps have been in the low 60's without much variance predicted for the near future. I'm not whining though cause I'm still able to wear shorts every day! I'll leave the whining for Pam. It's way too cold for her liking!

We've enjoyed the company of Frank & Peg Balistreri for the past few days and although the weather wasn't great for boating we were able to do some exploring by land. We visited Ft. Myers Beach and found some hearty vacationers who don't have the luxury of waiting for better weather.

We even found this pair of pirate wenches roaming the sands. Perhaps being boarded by pirates isn't such a bad thing!

One of the highlights during their visit was a trip to see the Manatees that congregate near the local power plants water discharge. Hundreds of these creatures travel many miles seeking the warm water from the power plant. Unfortunately many have perished this winter due to the cold water temperatures. The picture above reminds me of the movie Cocoon from some years back.

Later that day we travelled to Sanibel and Captiva Islands and had lunch at the Green Flash Restaurant overlooking the water. Fortunately we weren't a party of two or we would have possibly been given this "head" table at the restaurant!

One of the fears of every boater is hitting a submereged object while travelling across the water. At home it is usually a log or barrel. In the open sea it's a shipping container. This ship lost between 20 and 30 of these truck sized containers off the coast near Key West a couple weeks ago. They think most of them sank but are not sure. The Gulf Stream will take those that didn't sink all the way up the East Coast endangering boaters for months to come. The ship returned to Miami for off-loading to try and figure how many and what cargo was lost.

As the headline says it's my son Ryans birthday. It's hard to believe he can get older while I never change! Happy Birthday Ryan. Hope you have a great day!