4/24/09 - COBIA
by Robin

Fishing was very slow for Jack on Thurs, the 23rd. But, we still decided to head out Friday as I needed my blue-water fix and it was another day of no wind. The forecast predicted that the winds would kick up again for another week after that, so we went.

We had no expectations except to have a fun family day out there. We were not disappointed.

God blessed us before we even dunked the water with having an internet fishing friend give us a tip on where he had seen some manta rays & cobia when we was up flying in a helicopter for his job. WOW. What a tip.



We followed him out, but tried not to tail him too much. We turned left at the port entrance and followed the coast of the cape until we came across a beautiful "girl" who was practically sunbathing while slow-cruising her way north. Jack made his first cast in front of her and instantly he was hooked up with a cobia.



I love it when your morning all falls into place so smoothly. Fish in the cooler within the first 30 minutes. We casted more to "her" but she didn't have any more cobia following her. Then we spotted 2 "boys" who were in a big hurry to swim south to our gal. Jack cast towards them but they were clipping so fast on the surface that the jig & one's wing met in the middle and ...... resulted in losing our favorite pink jig.



All three did a little dance, spinning around and eventually the "boys" took off, leaving our "girl" alone to slow cruise again northbound. We did see one free-swimming cobia but he was very spooked so we were wondering if our friend had already played with this one before we got here. Regardless, he was not going to help us make our limit on cobia for the day.

From there, we went to a shoal called 8A. We were looking around for any prospective bottom dwellers when I spotted a school of small mahi mahi. I chummed to them right away but they weren't having any of it. They disappeared in a hurry.

Jack wasted no time in deciding to head out to deeper water to troll some lines to possibly pick up some bigger mahi. Well.... long story short... no mahi for us. Very few were being caught in 300-600 ft water. It may still be slightly early in the season. Water temps were 77-78 which is borderline low-end of what the phins like.

We ran into our friends out on the water. These are Jack's coworkers.





From here, Jack decided to end our day, only I didn't know that. I had taken to sunbathing on the top of the big cooler. I asked what we were doing. Jack said, "Going home." I guess I gave the biggest, disappointing, "What? I haven't even wet a hook." Jack never questioned or replied. He meerly plugged in new numbers and south we headed.

We ended up anchoring on a great little spot. Lots of little fish - blk sea bass and short snappers & a couple grunts. Nothing for the cooler.



We left that spot at 5:30 for the port, 20 mi away. Pulled in the driveway at 7:30pm. Finished with boat & fish cleaning by 9:30pm. Wow, what a cool day.



I'll have to post up more pictures in another day or two of the Kennedy Space Center launch pads. We saw a rare treat. Both pads had shuttles sitting on them. I'll make a separate post for that.

Happy Fishing!!
Robin

CRAZY WIND
by Robin

I'm sure you all think I've died and gone to Facebook, but I'm still here. The wind has been crazy for at least 3 weeks in a row, creating 6 feet waves regularly. The poor offshore fishermen are foaming at the mouth waiting for the first day of calm seas.

Meanwhile, we couldn't just foam & look rabid, so we decided to cheer ourselves up with a little seafood festival again. It's amazing what a pound of this and pound of that will do for your taste buds.

Many of you may know my personal chef, AKA Capt Jack.


He got the steam going and popped in a few of these babies (3 lbs).


Then, we put 2 lbs of LIVE clams and 1 lb of skewered shrimp on the grill.


Oh my.... my mouth is watering again. Please excuse me. These were sooo delicious.



When the clams popped open, we put them on the bar to start digging into. Don't skimp on the Crystal's Hot Sauce for your clams.

I couldn't even show you a picture of the rest of it because I was so busy stuffing my face with seafood & vegan butter. Oh my.....

Well, the seas finally calmed down today and several of Jack's coworkers took the day off (they're slow) and did the buddy boating system waaaay offshore. Sadly, the big fish they marked all had lock-jaw for all but 1 of the guys. They did weed through some short red snapper but not much was out there. Water was green & dirty all the way out to 200+ ft of water. Only a few dolphin were caught by other boaters.

Our pending trip for tomorrow is something we're praying about. Not sure I want to waste the gas money if fishing isn't so good. It might be better to wait. We'll see.

For the meantime, I have to continue drooling over these pictures.

Happy Fishing!!
Robin

Rocket Recovery - Part 2
by Robin

We left of yesterday with the guys under water.





Recovering the top part (I think).












We have actually seen this in person in past shuttle launches. The reality & size of it all is very shocking.




The boat in the right (background) is the one I took the pic of last week at Port.


On the tracks which will deliver it back to Kennedy Space Center.


Hope you enjoyed this series.
Happy Fishing!!

ROCKET RECOVERY - Part 1
Photographer unknown, given to me by a church friend who works for USA contracts.








(Interrupt to tell you that his pictures were excellent but I couldn't figure out how to save them from a slideshow, so I had to take pics of the pics on the computer. Sorry for the lack of quality, but you get the idea of the process.)



Briefing the strategy of recovery.


Found them.


Lucky guys who get to dive around the booster.






Tying them up.




Join me tomorrow to see the next dozen pictures of recovery.
Happy Fishing & Spring Break.

CASTING COMPETITION in Melbourne, FL
4/4/09
by Robin



Today, was the casting competition. Sadly, only 7 people signed up in our entire county. My friends' kids and my two boys. When her 3 eldest heard there was no competition for them, they dropped out. That left 4 very cute kids.



Most all the kids knew how to cast overhand (over the shoulder) but none of them knew how to do a underhand toss. First, they had to learn how to do that.



Then, the challenge was to make the spoon (minus a hook - see white arrow below) land into one of the three hoola-hoops in the pond. Points were given for "close by", hitting the ring but not going in and going in (1, 2, 3 pts, respectively).



We even had a young lady angler in our presence. This girl is great. She can cook, garden, fish, loves animals, shoot pictures and knit, all with a ball cap & curly ponytail. Gee,... she's like a mini-me (except I crochet, not knit).



Her little brother.... well, what's not to love about those blonde curls? Not to mention that he can cast and finished 2nd place.



"My" girl finished 3rd.

Here is a pic of the boy that not only was birthed by me & spitting image of his father, but made it in the hoop with an overhand cast. Yeah! He had a couple near-misses as well.





Here's the group photo. Eddie is the County Extension Agt who headed up the competition. (Oh.. my youngest, in red, was 4th place but managed to weasel a 3rd place ribbon out of Mr. Eddie. I have no idea how he does that. I guess they felt guilty there were no Participation - green ribbons in the box.) My eldest got the 1st place blue, but they also handed him a Best in Division since he won over all age groups.

Slight Pause
by Robin

I have the pictures ready to go for the shuttle rocket recovery blog, but it's late and I've spent way too much time on Facebook. Maybe tomorrow I can post them AFTER the kids and I get back from our "Casting" competition at the Fair.

It's silly really. The boys and I will cast against another 4H family (very little turnout) to hit a marker in the middle of the lake. Winners will be announced later. I think I'm the only adult. Pitiful. I guess all the men are offshore fishing, for real. I wonder if we get a fishing pole as a trophy?

My other motive for going is to see how we did with our Photography entries. Btw, our Marine entries did very well. Little man and I both took Best in Division for our salty selections. I don't think we get any of that stuff back until the 14th. Pictures will be forth coming when that happens.

HOUSES on our Beach Cruise
by Robin

I hope this is warming up some of you still stuck with snow and drying out those of my Georgia family & friends who are soaked.

This is a nice contemporary beach house. Look at the vivid colors. You could not miss it.


I liked this cozy two-story. I bet it has two nice fireplaces inside too. What a great way to warm up after those long winter beach walks. Lots of windows to watch the waves come in and weather stroll by.


This is historic 1st Bapt Church of Cocoa Beach. We visited this church once for fun. Not long afterwards, their Sunday school area had a fire. Not good. Then, in 2004, their steeple was pulled off the roof during Hurricane Frances and pierce through the roof. I *WISH* I had a photo of that. We did see it. So sad but also very thought-provoking. Hmmmm? I'm sure this church has seen its share of hurricanes.


Oh and there's the splash again that was right behind the boys. I love to see water frozen in time (without the ill-effect of being cold).


Here is the view northward from Cocoa Beach up to Cape Canaveral. See how the Cape curves out to the right? Very neat. Also, it may be hard to see in this picture but there is a big sandbar that juts out here. It is where we caught our whiting and pompano a couple months ago. It is faintly lighter than the blue/green of the inshore ocean.


The water was rather "dirty" which is a term fishermen use for bad water clarity. This is because of all the winds & waves over the past week. By summer, the water becomes very clean down at the beach, except for post-hurricanes. (There's that cool pelican again.)