The beaches are really nice down here.

Yesterday we visited Bahia Honda Key State Park, which is the next key south of Marathon. It has 3 nice, large beaches, but doesn’t allow pets on the beach. I enjoyed watching the pelicans splash into the water from the air, come up with their beaks like a balloon full of water, and then strain it all out just to catch one or two 2-inch long minnows. There was a school of thousands of minnows near us at the beach and the pellicans were having a field day catching them, so it was quite a spectacle. Kathy went shelling and, of course, we kept too many of them. We always bring back too many shells from beaches we visit and have to edit the assortment later.


Today (Jan. 10), we went to the local beach at Marathon where they do allow dogs on a leash, and Daisy has a 25 ft. roll-up leash so she could run and swim in the Atlantic ocean, which she enjoyed mightily. Kathy and I threw a stick and she’d splash and swim out after it. The only problem was that I had to dip her when we were ready to go and then carry her, all wet and dripping, up to the paved area so she wouldn’t be covered with wet sand. Luckily, there was a foot rinse-off stand with the spout just at Daisy’s height, so she got a fresh water rinse too.
There was a gorgeous sunset last night. Kathy and I usually watch the sunset from the flybridge here because it’s high enough to see out over the docks. Monday night, there was a sunset without clouds and we actually saw the “green flash”! We have heard about a green flash just as the sun dips below the horizon, but we’ve looked for it a hundred times and have never seen one. We didn’t even know what to look for, whether it was a green glow in the haze near the sunset or a widespread green flash. What we actually saw was that the last fingernail rim of the setting sun, as it dipped below the horizon actually turned from bright yellow to green for the last two seconds or so that it was visible. I guess it takes a clear, cloudless night and the right atmospheric conditions to produce one, but before last night, I just thought it was a legend. The standard line has been “If you want to see a green flash, watch through a Heineken bottle”…..but no more! Unfortunately, no pictures of the green flash, just memories. Kathy saw it too.