Gearing Up and Waiting It Out

We've been stocking up the boat in preparation for heading over to the Bahamas.  Massive grocery shopping, multiple trips to Home Depot and KMart, finishing off those last little projects (or at least thinking about finishing them).  Are we ready yet?  Heck no!  We still have lots of little things to buy.  New sunglasses (ours are scratched from being worn all the time), more sunscreen (always need more), film for the underwater camera (oh yes, we have an underwater camera)...  You get the idea.  Little things we can live without, but would like to have (especially film!).  And we're waiting to get the bottom of the boat cleaned.  It was supposed to be done today, but the wind has picked up something fierce, so Diver Mike is waiting until Sunday.  So it's a lot of hurry up and wait.  Waiting on the weather mostly.  We were hoping to get out of here Sunday or Monday, but it's looking like that won't happen.  Because the three days after that are predicted to have strong winds out of the east.  You know what's to the east?  The Bahamas.  An east wind will keep us from getting there.  So we'll be waiting a little longer.  Maybe another week.  But that's okay.

Because Trevor's parents are coming to visit!  His dad called around 9:00 last night, making small talk and asking about our plans.  Then he said "yeah, we'll probably be there tomorrow afternoon."  What?!  They're coming to visit for an early birthday surprise for Trevor.  And if they didn't see us before we head to the Bahamas, they won't see us until probably May.  So they decided to take a road trip on down here to say hi.  How cool is that?  But in the tradition of people coming to visit, the wind has picked up and is blowing hard enough to chop up the bay (splashy splashy, we all get soaked coming to shore in the dinghies).  If you recall, Thaddeus brought some fierce wind with him when he came to see us last month.  It's starting to look like a trend.  So a note if you intend to come visit us (and you should, wherever we are!), plan a week so you might get some nice weather.  If you're here for three days, it's almost guaranteed to be some nasty weather. 

But you don't read the blog for news.  You read it for pictures!  And I hate to disappoint.  Remember that underwater camera I mentioned?  Oh yeah, we totally had that in the Dry Tortugas!  Along with a couple of disposables.  We finally got them developed, so here are the underwater pictures from the Dry Tortugas!

First, these are pictures from snorkeling along the wall along Ft. Jefferson's moat.  After the moat wall, we went to the coal pilings. 

Coral growing on a fallen piece of brick wall.

more coral growing on the wall

Pretty cool, huh?  Coral on the bricks.

We were surrounded by thousands (millions?) of these little fish.

An entrance into the moat.

Another wall picture.

More of those little fish at the wall.

Crevalle jacks under the coal pilings.

They're so shiny!

Coral growing on the pilings.

More coral growing on the pilings.  It was so cool.

Look, more coral!

Yep, coral on the pilings.

Pilings at the surface of the water.

Oh my gosh!  We're so cute!

Yep, good stuff going on here.  Don't hate us because we live an awesome life.  We worked hard for it.  :)