How am I doing with the alliteration on my titles? Somehow this week seems to be lending itself to that… I was pretty tired by the time we hit the hay Tuesday night and had grand plans for sleeping in. Apparently my body defined that as 7:30 am. Why, I do not know. 

But I was up, and the birds were chirping so I opened the sliding door in my room and hit the balcony for a morning-write. That lasted about three minutes before the no-see-ums decided I would be a fantastic breakfast. It
wasn’t a great morning to be eaten so I retreated to the downstairs living room, where I still had the pleasure of seeing nature as I wrote, but ensconced in air-conditioned, bug-free luxury.

I was joined by the others a bit later and the guys went off to do something while we girls hung out and yakked. It was David’s birthday so together we prepped for a nice dinner, and Jen did some tatting. Don’t you just love her little Kokopelli people?

Jen and I went for a swim while Mary Beth caught up on work for the Max Schewitz Foundation (shameless plug for a great outreach here) – a nonprofit founded in 2006, grant-making charitable foundation started by Max’s family and friends after Max died from a sudden cardiac arrhythmia at age 20 in 2005. The Foundation has dual missions:

1. Support education, prevention, and research of sudden cardiac death in young people.
2. Support environmental conservation, a lifelong interest of Max’s.

After swimming, Jen and I walked to the dock to see what our guys were up to. Along the way, we passed the Horr house, an historical  plantation home that exists in this gated community. You can read the history of it on the sign (click any image to see a larger version of it). We read the history then went for a closer inspection of the shells used in the home’s structure. Wild!

When we got to the dock, we had a bit of excitement. The men had seen a dolphin really, really close! I’m a bit envious. But mostly I’m glad they got footage. Chris let me use his clip for this post:

Next, I tried some dock fishing. I have cast a line before, but I don’t remember ever catching anything. My luck changed on that dock. 🙂

Jen Has to Point Out Legalities 😉 (it’s okay, we were with residents)

Chrissie Caught a Fish!

Mike Got a Lot of Fish.

While our catches wouldn’t really feed us, it was good practice for going out on the boat on Thursday.

We headed home for a birthday dinner with David and his parents, stopping to see a tortoise, some lizards, raccoons, osprey and rabbits on the way. Here’s how Google Photos summarized my day (the dolphin isn’t in there since I hadn’t uploaded Chris’ pics at that point):