February 25

February 25, 2015

Who knew those beautiful herons had such horrible voices!  This morning we watched a pelican dive on fish close to shore where a heron was fishing. The heron is waiting for the fish to come to shore and the pelican is scooping them before they get there!  So all we can hear is the heron screaming! And there is an osprey in the tree above the heron waiting for his turn! I guess they are all fishing for different things but the heron is NOT impressed with the pushy pelican. It finally moved down the shore and ended up in front of another one, so that one is screaming at him too, just further away.

the pelican left

Dolphin splashing to chase fish onto shore so they can eat them

*sigh* no words

Lighthouse at Lake Worth Inlet

This guy slowed to tell us he had been skating on the Rideau Canal last week.  We asked why! His wife is Canadian

NO idea what this is but it's cool, eh?

Oops

The sky is cloudy over us but south of us is clear, so we’re heading out of the anchorage early.  We watched the dolphins chase fish up on shore to eat them, and the pelicans came in to help [eat them]. Of course, the minute we pick up a camera, all wildlife disappears! Manatees are vegetarians, so they don’t care.  They are the natural dredgers in the ICW. They pull up and eat all the weeds so the channels don’t fill up with sand.

We got through the bridge maze... six bridges all of which open on the hour or half hour so, if you don’t time it properly, you have to hover until the next opening. We didn’t have to wait for too long at any of them, but we weren’t in a hurry either. We were avoiding running over manatees [they really are stupid old sea cows], and we were avoiding the huge mega yachts running up the river.

Today the Sheriff’s office Volunteer boat cruised the river beside us for awhile. That made the stupid fast boats slow down as they passed us. Handing having friends in high places. One of them was a retired law enforcement officer so I offered over my OPP mug from Thunder Bay. My RCMP mug has a chip in it so I kept that one.

We are anchored in the North Fort Worth Inlet. Joseph is coming to the dinghy to meet us and take a sheet of copper off our hands. We are also going to Publix and the Dollar Tree. Our bucket has a hole in it, and we need a few bits of fruit and cheese.

There is a Trader Joe’s here as well, yahoo!! They have a great gluten free section, I’ll be heading there!  I imagine we will stop for dinner at one of Joseph’s haunts and then come back to the boat

So we will sit at anchor here tonight.  I am so sick of watching the million dollar houses go by with the million dollar yachts parked in front of them. You could house the population of Hepworth in some of these places [or Kakabeka, for you northerners].  So I want to get through this area as fast as possible and out onto the ocean.

So here’s the pics from today.