shark!

church. Hurricane. pool. dominoes. Seven Mile Bridge.  That pretty much sums up the Sun-day.

"The sunrise is God's greeting, the sunset- His signature."

I decided to walk to the end of the Seven Mile bridge and back.  I nearly got to the end just as the sun was setting.  A man was fishing off the bridge, down by Pigeon Key.  He was catching Trevally Jacks with almost every cast.  He works at Pigeon Key, the settlement at the end of the bridge, and he was very familiar with all the marine life.  He had a close encounter with a bull shark on his kayak just last week!  A bull shark is one bad boy shark that you want to be no where near- just ask Cap'n Donnie about the time he had to feed a bull shark on a scuba dive.  YIKES!

So, this guy was catching jacks and keeping them in the water, distressed, to draw in the sharks, and did he ever!  I saw black tip reef sharks, nurse sharks, a bull shark and some big daddy tarpon!  He put one quite the show with those sharks. It was pretty exciting stuff...I'm sorry the pictures are not really clear...I was about 40 feet up on the bridge, and the sun had set so the light was from dim to hard dark...

The center is a nurse shark, with his tail curled to his right.  He was about six feet long.  These sharks are generally docile, and ones you don't need to worry about.  I've dove with them many times.

This was a jack on the right, still hooked on the line, and a black tipped reef shark breaking the surface of the water on the left. 

What you see in the upper right corner is the remains of a jack.  A shark nailed it, biting it in half.  It had been about 20" long, before it became a shark snack.  I actually felt bad for the fish.

He put the bloody half of fish back in the water, and about five sharks started buzzing through, coming up out of the water trying to eat it.  Woah!  On the third pass, a shark exploded that fish off the hook.  Crazy!

The sky was beautiful on the return walk back.  It's 2.2 miles one way to the end.  For the last several days, it was been mid 80's in the day, and mid 70's overnight.  Hard to take, I know.  ;)

The humidity is also up, and near sundown, there was not a breath of wind.  The Gulf was like glass, with hardly a ripple.  It's hard to tell where the water ends and the sky begins.  It's been like this in the mornings, too.

On the walk back, the moon was rising, and shining brightly.  The bridge was easily illuminated for the walk back to the parking lot.  It reminded me of the walk we took with Brian Meek when he was down last year.  He would have loved watching that guy catching jacks and messing with the sharks.  I thought of you, Brian! 

What little wind we had today was out of the WSW 5-10.  With the flat seas, it has been perfect for a Gulfstream crossing to the Bahamas.  I hope we get the same type of wind and weather when we are ready to leave the end of March.  If anybody has any pull with the Man upstairs, put in a special request for Marquesa, ok? lol

Tomorrow is my Momma's 79th birthday.  I hope she is feeling better, so I can take her out for some fun and sun.  She only has a few days of her vacation left before she flies home on Thursday.  As of now, it looks like she will be flying home to more snow.  When we were home in the winter months, the days seemed to slow to a crawl.  I hated going to work in the dark, and coming home in the dark.  I am so blessed to not have to do that any more.  It does seem like the days go so much faster down here in paradise.  Momma's month here is nearly up; and two weeks from tomorrow, Elliebug will be here. Now that Marquesa is up and running well, I hope to get more sailing and some diving in during the coming weeks.  The first two months here have been a little rough with boat and $$$ issues.  I pray that is all behind us now.

That's all for now....G'nite, y'all!