3 posts in one day...

I told you I was playing catch up!

On a lighter note from my previous post, we did have a pretty good weekend.  Saturday afternoon, our friend Alan came to visit.  We did some beach time and the normal deep-thought-discussions, and of course the fun back-and-forth banter.

Monday we decided to rent ocean kayaks and  try out the bay.  I wasn't thrilled about the idea because of my previous experience on smaller kayaks (and this is why my kayak is still in Sioux City...it can stay there right now!).  So everything seemed ok, we put the color in the kayak, geared up, and set out.  We saw some manatees and got pretty close to some dolphins.  No pictures, because it's hard to paddle and work a camera.  We were kind of chasing this pretty big dolphin when about an hour or more from the marina where we started and in the midst of little mangrove islands, Ed says, "hey guys, is my boat sinking?"  I turned to him and said, "why yes, yes it is."  So Alan and I went to Ed's aid and unloaded the cooler onto my ankles and Alan shared some of the weight by taking on some bottles and what not.

It was clear that Ed wouldn't make it back to any type of shore in that boat.  We looked around and saw a couple fishing boats and thought it would be best to try to reach one of them for help.  So I headed as fast as I could across some open-ish water to the nearest boat.

When I got there, all out of breath with cotton-mouth, I apologized profusely for disturbing their fishing trip and interrupting their day.  They looked at me like I was a disease or sea scum that they just wanted to be rid of.  I had to BEG them to help us.  After they finally agreed they headed to help Ed and I started the paddle back to where they were.  Just as I got back, they were pulling away to take Ed back to the marina where we rented the kayaks.  Alan and I sat there for a few seconds trying to decide if we were going to wait for them to come back or if we were going to head back.  We very quickly decided to head back and charged forward with the return trip.

It didn't take us too long, because we (or at least I) were no longer distracted by dolphins and manatees.  I just wanted to be on land!  We made it all the way back and the Crazy Kayak Lady was just then securing a boat to go get the sinking kayak.

So after docking our kayaks, we all hopped on a pontoon boat and headed back out to the bay to find Ed's sunken ship kayak.  We realized that we hadn't reeaaaallllly followed the map on our way out, but we didn't have much trouble locating the kayak.  We had shoved it up in a mangrove cave and it was still  there, safe and sinking.  We pulled it up on the pontoon boat and headed back, saw some more manatees and some crazy diving birds.

The Crazy Kayak Lady didn't charge us and we got a pontoon boat ride out of it.  So all in all the day was good!  Not to mention getting that close to the manatees and dolphins.  Although I think we were just as close to them when we were at the beach as we were when we were kayaking.

gooood times, gooooooood times...