Tuesday, March 20, 2012

March 20, 2012.

Happy Birthday to me. Thanks Ma. It just dawned on me that I'm more than half way done. I don't know how people that make it into their nineties get outta bed. I'm 54 and my shit is sore.

Its been 2 days since we turned around and anchored behind Raccoon Cay. We're about 15 miles from the nearest Batelco tower so using the internet is fairly tedious. If we're 2 or 3 miles away our air card works down at the Nav station. Perfect. Anything more than that and I have to bring the laptop topside to use it in the cockpit. No biggie. But at this range I need a little more height. With the laptop sitting on the cockpit table I can rarely connect. But holding the laptop over my head and I can get on right away. Problemo.

Since the air card plugs into a USB port on the starboard side of the computer I found that if I rest the laptop on its port side with the air card up towards the bimini it works pretty good. Eureka. Of course it does make typing a one finger pain in the ass and reading IS a pain in the neck, literally.
But it is what it is and we're still connected. I think next year we'll be using a USB2 cable to remote mount the air card to make things a little easier.

We did get in the water and were able to take 3 nice bugs in the 3 to 4 pound range.
I also managed to grab our biggest Hogfish of the season weighing in at about 6 pounds. I was swimming against a mild current when he swam right by me headed the other way. So I turned around and spent close to 300 yards catching up to him. He wasn't really darting away but he was headed somewhere.
All of a sudden it was like he realized that I was following him and he turned broadside to flare his dorsal fin to intimidate me. I was actually SO intimidated that I shot him in self defense.

The freezer is now officially full so we decided to do a little beach combing yesterday. The beach here at Raccoon has been picked over by dozens of women for the last few months. But we applied ourselves and came home with 2 dozen various sea beans. Hamburgers, Purses and Monkey Faces, oh my.

Today we'll make some water, burn some trash and take a swim for the heck of it and yes, I will be dragging a spear along just in case.

9 comments:

Sabrina and Tom said...

Not a bad way to spend your time if you have to sit and wait for the right weather.

~~_/)~~
Sabrina

Anonymous said...

Happy Birthday Bill.....hope you have many many more "even tho your shit is sore?" Gary's B day is the 21st, planned on surf fishing but sea tooo big so it's off to work til noon then company and party the rest of day. Goatman is 65 and still going strong!!! Love to you and Christy, hope to see ya on the return.........

Latitude 43 said...

You're older than I am? Shit, I better get cruising.
Happy Birthday!

Deb said...

Yeah I noticed a pretty accelerated downhill run after 50. By 55 it was noticeably worse. Can't wait till 60 lol.

Deb
S/V Kintala
www.theretirementproject.blogspot.com

Gremlins Hammer said...

Happy Birthday- looks like life is pretty great, and that the scenery is perfect. Enjoy your catch!

~C

Anonymous said...

We are in the Keys. Hope to catch up with you next fall on your migration south. Terri and Larry s/v Vixen

S/V Veranda said...

S...I'm not complainin'

Tell the Goatman we said happy bday.

L43...if i'm older; then you are late....get a move on it

rollin downhill is better than bashing to windward

GH....things really couldn't be better unless publishers clearinghouse calls

T...i guess you guys have had your share of easterlies lately. enjoy the keys

Unknown said...

As someone who has NOT been out there yet, it's always great to get tips and hear what people do. So, you can burn your trash? I haven't heard that one before. Any rules/requirements to doing that there?

S/V Veranda said...

theres not really much choice. if you can take your trash into a settlement their either going to burn it or dump it at sea. we burn all our burnables. no bottles, cans, tinfoil, etc.