'Life is Good' - 'Yes it is.'
After we went out to dinner the other night, John, Sandi and I wandered over to the Marina at Tin City to see what was happening. I thought it was a bit sad at the time - going to work after hours but I was soon proved wrong. John started chatting to a couple of women on a boat, (Jay and her daughter Meghan) and managed to get me invited out on the Florida backwaters on their boat for a day!
Jay is an ex-music teacher who lives on a boat in the marina. She makes smart pieces of shell art from the shells she collects when her and Meghan go out each week on the boat. She drove us up to a point where the Gulf of Mexico meets the backwaters and we went out collecting shells under the blue sky.
This is Meghan (who looked away just as I took this) a really nice bird who I think I may have persuaded to try a bit of traveling! Jay encouraged it as she once did Oz, NZ and Fiji with her school. After having a bit of lunch we cracked open some beers from the cooler and spent the rest of the day chewing the fat about life, traveling and what Americans think of the English and what the English think of Americans. We saw a load of dolphins, ospreys and various other backwater birds. As well as some really fancy hardware from JetSkis to PowerBoats.
When we got out to some open water, Jay let me drive for a bit. The grin on my face is one of pure joy as she said "There are 2 fuel efficient ways to drive the boat…. No wake, and Aquaplaning. Guess which one I'd been doing before Meghan took this? By the way, GPS is cool.
I've worked a lot since I've been here and it was really great to get out and do a bit of what Florida does best! I especially liked the waving between people on boats. Not the frantic ferry-to-ferry type you get from lines of school kids on the Dover-Calais crossing, more like a laid back acknowledgement to the person on the other boat that, 'Life is Good' - 'Yes it is.'
Back in reality, John and I went to a property in the beautiful and exclusive town of Bonita Springs. My task was to shift and landscape loads of sand and dirt from the front of the house to the back. Dig a 50 ft trench to carry power lines from the house to the newly installed dock, then a 30ft one for a fresh water connection. Then cut back and bag up a bunch of Eureka Palms. All of which took about 3 days in the blazing sunshine.
It was nice taking a break though. The dock was a good place to chill out!
We went in on Saturday and took some fishing rods which we set up and watched while we worked. I caught a Catfish. I think it's the first fish I've ever properly caught. I've been fishing twice before that. Once in Raphel's Park (a dismal failure) and once at Center Parcs where there are so many fish that every time I put my rod in I'd pull them out by the gills, the eyes, the tail... I don't reckon I'll take it up for a hobby, it's a bit too hit and miss for me. It's a good enough sport to distract me from work though!
Well, whenever it's finished, the guy is hoping to get over a million bucks for it. The view is fabulous, the wildlife is varied, the fishing is OK, the Gulf of Mexico is 5 minutes walk and the blue sky comes as standard all year round.
