REPORTS FROM THE RIP: Old Friends and New Mates

New crew

Key West does not change much. Its kinda like the movie ground hog day. Tourist come and go and in the marina boats come and go. Its always nice to see old friends as they pass through.
We are still here. We have been taking guests out fishing for Yellowtail Snapper on the reefs or trolling for dorado out on the Rip offshore or free diving for lobster in the shallows of the surrounding keys.

My new mate and I

I do have a new deck hand on board. Dan Condron is now my mate on board. I think he will fit in just fine, judging from the picture to the right. He's been a pleasure to work with over the past few weeks and I look forward to fishing with him for a while. I will have to work on training him to not eat so much... The boy can pound some food. I swear he has a bag of chips in his hand all day long.

About two weeks ago, the boss was kind enough to let my kids come down and lobster and fish with me. We had a blast. I took them out eat day and they both caught plenty of lobster. We even went out and trolled for Dolphin and caught some nice ones. My kids have always been fish when they are in the water. I wondered if they would do well on lobster free diving having not done it for a few years. NO PROBLEM. Patrick was a machine in the water and seemed to catch more than anyone. Lauren on the other hand was hilarious to watch from the boat. When she was a little girl she use to sing and make all kinds of noises thru her snorkel... some thing never change. I never could understand what she was saying when she was catching lobster this last week. I think she was talking to the lobster.

One night Dan and I took Patrick and Lauren out on the town. We dressed up and headed to Duval street. Patrick is of legal age but Lauren still has a year to go. So we went to the bars that allowed under 18 accompanied by parent. WAIT let me back this story up. Before leaving to boat I pulled out a pair of those cheesy Groucho Marks glasses with the big fake nose and told Lauren that I would give her $10 if she wore them all the way to Duval street. She did and did it with style. ( She should have held out for $20). So anyway we walked the street and I got to do my first Duval Crawl with my sone and daughter. I was never so greatfull when they both told me they were tired from lobster diving and wanted to go back to the boat. ( 9:45 pm) YES.

Only in Key West

To the right is a picture of one of the fine people that lives out in the harbor on a sail boat. His ingenuity is quite impressive. He has rigged up a home made catamaran boat and fashioned a Weed Whacker on to the back of it. he attached a small propeller to the whacker and thats how he motors around the harbor. Only in Key West

Last week I took some time off the boat and headed north. I spent a day at the house, then headed to the hunting property.
I basically burned stumps and ran the tractor bush hogging fields for my time up there. I really enjoyed it. Well except for the grass hoppers in every orifice of my body when I was running the tractor through the fields. I did not have a chance to clean out the hunting stands. But I did stop in and check on the Killer squirrel stand. The monstrous bastards have infested that stand once again. I cracked the door open just a hair and they all charged at me. They will have to be taken care of on my next trip up to the land. I will be brining in reinforcements. Those are some bad ass squirrels. But I will be using extreme prejudice When I next open the door to that deer stand.

In a couple of days We are doing a Tortugas trip. Everyone thinks that Key West is the last key or furthest west Key. But in reality the Dry Tortugas are the last islands in the Keys chain. The are 70 miles west of Key West. There is an old civil war fort out there and it is steeped with history. The fishing can be spectacular as well. I will write more about it in my next blog.