Irene

Irene, a photo by sache47 on Flickr.

She's off to our northeast and just brought us a slight breeze. Perfect day for the beach. Hope we can find a chair. Just kidding, it's just the seagulls and us.

The Mystery Chair

The Mystery Chair, a photo by sache47 on Flickr.

Sure it doesn't fit in, but looks pretty comfy for an afternoon on the beach, or a cocktail at 5.

Last Launch

Last Launch, a photo by sache47 on Flickr.

What a great opportunity to see the last shuttle launch from the beach at Melbourne. I didn't get a great shot from my iPhone, but we saw it, heard it, and felt it as it broke through the clouds.

This green turtle was spotted nesting on Smather's Beach in Key West this weekend. This is only the second time a green turtle nest has been found in a residential island of The Keys. They usually nest in the Marquesas or offshore uninhabited islands. Green turtles are endangered, and very it's very rare to even see one out in the ocean. Richie Moretti, our turtle expert from the Turtle Hospital in Marathon, says she most probably hatched on this beach 25 years ago. They come back to the same beach to lay their eggs. After she crawled back to the ocean they put up a fence around the nest and hopefully in about 55 days there will be lots of baby green turtles hatching from their eggs and marching to the ocean.

It's Jet Pack Adventures in Key West!

Strap the jet pack to your back, get a little instruction and you blast off to a great view. Bill says he definitely will not participate, his noodle is all the adventuring he wants to do. Maybe Jack will try it out when he comes down for the 4th, and I know Tom Storey would have lined up for a chance to try it out. $249 for an hour of instruction and a half hour of lift offs. And, the owner plans to offer rides in Marathon next month.

How sad to hear that Clarence Clemons is in the hospital after suffering a stroke in his Florida home over the weekend. Not so important to us is that he performed with Lady Gaga on American Idol recently. More important to us is how much fun we had at the Brass Monkey celebration bash where this photo was taken. When Winn-Dixie made plans to pull the lease on the Brass Monkey, the community showed up, including Clarence who spends lots of his leisure time in Marathon, to protest. The Winn-Dixie reversed its decision and the Monkey threw a party and invited the community to celebrate. Unsure of how we might fit into the bash, we tentatively went with Dave and Doris. What a great time we had. Real people having a real good time. Everyone, including Clarence, treated us like locals. And I was this close to a great sax player, Clarence Clemons.

It was great having my sisters here for the past four days. We enjoyed playing Scrabble on the beach every day, noodling in the ocean, and going to the Eco-Discovery Center and West Martello Gardens in Key West. It was so sad to see them leave this morning. Sisters are the greatest.

No, this isn't Doris, but I had to share this catch that was in the Keynoter today. This dolphin was 69.8 pounds, and the state record is 81 pounds, the world record, 85 pounds caught in Costa Rica. It took this lady from Naples 45 minutes to bring it in on 20 pound test. She caught it while on Superfish Charters out of Marathon. I bet she used a fighting belt, Doris.

Shopping at Winn-Dixie with Marie, and you just never know who you will run into in the parking lot. Marie fell in love with Sugar, a beautiful cockatiel on her way in to shop with her owner from Coconut Cove Resort up in Islamorada. Sugar showed off a bit for us, and couldn't have been friendlier. The owner offered to take Marie's bird for a week and train it to be just as friendly as Sugar. Marie is thinking about it because she says her bird could use some help in the cordiality department (to say the least).

Our very own Doris Chinchar did quite well in the Mother's Day Dolphin Tournament with Jason Long of the Best Bet. She brought in this 23.8 pound dolphin by herself and without a fighting belt, using a faulty reel, and having to struggle with a tip-wrapped line. The bottom line is that she landed it along with lots more dolphin for a great day of fishing. One thing I like about Doris and Dave is that they share their catch and we had a wonderful Mother's Day dinner with them at Sparky's tonight. The fish was prepared perfectly and it was a beautiful evening for our last night together with great friends. We sure will miss you both, but we know there are still lots of dolphin out there for you to catch next year.

There's a whale rescue going on off Cudjoe Key this morning. 16 pilot whales were reported stranded at low tide around 7:00 last night. Vet. Doug Mader of Marathon, and lots of volunteers went out to help rescue, but most of the whales will probably not survive. They quickly set up a holding pen in deeper water to tend to the few that will make it and probably will be out there all day today, at least. They took a wrong turn? got mixed up about the tides? Who knows, but the last time there was a pilot whale stranding down here, it was very close to the same spot, back in 2003 when 27 whales were stranded.

GREMLINS have been organizing the Ocean Room and ran across these photos in The Cay Scrapbook.

Can anyone help to identify these fun-loving people from the Easter Parade in 19??? Boy, they really knew how to have a good time back in the '80s. Are any of these people still alive? I love the guy with the garbage can over his head and a bloody mary close by. Wasn't this a morning event? If you can identify anyone, send me an email or post a comment. History should be recorded, and anyway, we are just curious.

My friend Brende brought over this beautiful arrangement last week. I like how the purple dendrobium looks so nice with the wide variety of Keys greenery. She has stag horn fern, elk horn fern, fishtail fern, and ric-rac in the front. I love the ric-rac, and was thinking about how popular it was, fashion-wise, to add it as trim to so many clothing items back in the 60s. Everything came from her garden, and it looks like it is going to stay beautiful for several more days.

These beautiful seed pods on the mahogany tree have opened up, but they are too high for me to reach! By the time they fall to the ground, all that's left is the hard shell. The tree is in the parking lot by the police station, and it may attract attention if I carried a ladder across the street. It must be nature's way of preserving the species. No seed pods for me this year.

The landscape project at the post office is finished. They planted fox-tail palms. Some people thought they should have planted native palms, but these do look very pretty. It is normal that a few of the lower fronds die during transplanting. I asked why they don't trim the dead branches off and was told that it is better to leave them on because some of the energy goes back into the tree in this type of palm. They are like daffodils, you don't cut off the flower after it dies because it sends energy back to the bulb for the following year.

Cindy celebrated her 60th tonight with chocolate cake and raspberry martinis. Her and her girl friends go back to Vermont tomorrow to who knows what kind of weather. Whatever...they will make the best of it, and Cindy and Bill will be back in October for Fantasy Fest and the toga party. Look out!

Landscaping the KCB Post Office

It's not an easy task, digging 4 holes to plant 4 palm trees down here in The Keys. They have been working on this for at least a month. A shade tarp to work in the hot sun of the day, a back hoe and loader yesterday to dig in the coral rock and haul away bits and pieces and sand. The trees are standing by ready to be placed, and an irrigation system in also ready to go, so it shouldn't be too long before I am posting the "after" shot.

Some find it curious that all this work is being done while at the same time the US Post Office has pretty much guaranteed that our post office will be closing sometime in the near future. But the city owns the building, and the planning, work, and trees have been provided by some very industrious snow birds and full time residents who have a desire to make our city offices and post office area a more beautiful place to walk in to every day.

Yes, our vanda really is 7 feet tall and doesn't fit into our condo. She's a beauty, and in full bloom with another spike coming out on left side near the top. As long as the iguanas don't spot it, we hope to enjoy the bloom for a few more weeks at least.

Bill caught this beautiful 30 pound black grouper yesterday on the Lobster Boat while fishing with Jack, Dennis, and Pat. That's Kevin, the mate, helping to hoist the thing up for a photo. This grouper was then released because there is currently a ban on grouper catches until May 1. We had snapper for dinner and pretended it was grouper. Maybe when he hooks into this fish again in May, it will be up to 35 pounds.

This spotted eagle ray jumped into Two Chick's Charters in Islamorada while a family of 5 was fishing. It knocked the mother down and she was slimy, but unhurt. Even the eagle ray was released and fine. No wonder the captain here looks a little confused. The photo is taken from the front page of the Keysnet news.