1st Solo

Today was our first solo on the power pontoon boat we rented. Another beautiful day. Unfortunately, the tide was going out when we left and by the time we were heading back in the water was really shallow in the Estero Bay neighborhood. Somehow I got a bit off course and ended up in 2 ft of water and nearly aground on a sand bar. Had to trim the motor up, have Susie move to the front seat and slowly ease my way off the sand bar. Whew! Pretty exciting for a first solo. But now I know how to get out of trouble and I think I'm going to stick to high tide boating! Other than that little mishap, the trip went great. Susie got some great pictures of some dolphins jumping in our wake, using our new camera. I think they are publishable. We were out for about 4 hours in the pontoon boat (150 hp) and only burned 4 1/2 gallons of gas! What a deal.

This afternoon I went fishing off the dock and ended up with a bunch of tangled mono-filament. Got it fixed using the sharp knife method. After many casts, caught nothing. Then Susie came down to the dock, looked into the water, and exclaimed, "Look at all the fish down there in the water!" We saw a bunch of small, what I think were striped bass. We saw one about 8 inches long or so and then we saw a lighter colored big fish, a foot or more in length. Not sure what that was. Didn't get a good enough look to identify it. Probably some folks familiar with these fresh water canals would know what it was. Then we ended up feeding the fish and a couple of turtles, some bread. I think I may take a little hook, bait it with some bread, drop it off the side of the dock, and see what I can catch. One of these days I'll get my first fish.... One of these days...

All in all, a great day!! Life is sooooo good!!