Post by jmarkb on May 24, 2024 1:43:26 GMT -5
Late, but here it is. Ms PD and me left Port Saint Joe about 4:00 pm Thursday 5-9 and drove to Ocala. Spent the night and headed out to West Palm on Friday to my buddy's house. He and I have been friends for over 40 years, and still stay in close contact. Finished loading up their stuff Saturday morning, and moseyed on down to the Keys. Check in time was 4:00, so we didn't hurry and made several stops on the way down, several tackle shops, lunch at Mrs Macs Kitchen, and a couple of places that sold cool refreshing adult beverages. We took the ferry to FT Jefferson on Sunday and had a good time there. Flat calm the whole way there and back. It went downhill from there. The other couple woke up during the night feeling sick, and got worse over the next 4 days. We picked up our rental boat on Monday, loaded the gear and girls and tried to find a dolphin for dinner but no luck and the chop had the ladies giving us the "take us home now" looks about every 45 seconds. After just a few moments of that, they explained that any sexual activity that we might be considering (no, not any wife swapping) was gonna happen any time soon. The wind blew at abut 15-20 on Tuesday, not enough to keep me home but my bud was really getting bad so the boat stayed tied to the dock all day. Wednesday less wind, easily fishable but my buddy went to the emergency clinic where the doc told him he had a bad cold virus, pink eye and conjectivitis, and then yelled at him for not coming in much earlier. I took the boat back early after all that. Thursday me and Girl went back to Key West and walked around a while, which I hated. Been there too many times and am not a big party guy anyway. We did eat lunch at El Sibony in down town, though, find was fantastic as usual. hung around the house Friday, caught about 50 mangroves off the dock of which 3 were legal. Loaded up to leave Saturday morning, drove straight through to Clemont and stayed with Girl's mom until Monday am early. Back home 6 hours later. Being pretty much unconnected for 9 days was good (left the business phone with my son, with instructions not to call unless of fire or floods) but the lack of fishing and our friends both sick wasn't very entertaining, especially for them. So as vacation goes this one was a 0.5 in the fishing category, a 8-9 eating, Ft Jefferson 7-8, and rest full for me 9.5. Still bummed about the lack of fish killing. my guys did a good job while I was gone, the only time they called me was for fishing reports. Gonna go through my boat this weekend, charge batteries, load the new Navionic chart in the MPS, wash the boat, and rerig tackle from trolling back to bottom fishing. Season for the endangered and elusive Red Snapper opens a week from today.