Come Sail Away

Billy's trip to Florida was capped off by a visit to see his mom and stepdad on the west coast of Florida. During the winter, they live on a sailboat in Punta Gorda, which is outside of Fort Meyers on the Gulf of Mexico. Last time we visited was for Thanksgiving, and since there were more of us and Thanksgiving is mostly centered around eating mass quantities of food, they rented a house for all of us to stay in. It also wasn't ideal sailing weather then, so we ended up not actually going anywhere on the boat.

When Billy told me we were "going sailing," I thought he meant a quick day outing around the bay before coming back to the marina for the evening. I realized I was mistaken when Billy looked at me like I had six heads when I started packing running shoes. "Don't you want to run around the marina while we're there?" I asked him. "We're going sailing...as in we will be anchored out in the water overnight," Billy responded.

OH. That's even more exciting! I had never gone out on a big sailboat beyond the half hour trip around the Elk River I experienced a few times at summer camp, so I was pretty pumped to be going on a true nautical adventure. I captured a few of the highlights on video, including me driving the boat, attempting to blow the conch shell at sunset, and kayaking with manatees.

As you can see, the manatees were much friskier than usual. The most I was expecting to see was a nose come up for air, since that was all I saw last time I was in Florida. And because I had only seen their noses, I grossly underestimated their size. Apparently, it is manatee mating season, so they were in a baby-making frenzy which made for some great nature-watching.

Until they started bumping the kayaks. Usually they are quite mindful of whatever is in the water, staying away from boats and generally being very shy. Not surprisingly, all bets are off during mating season. I was extremely nervous the entire time that I was going to get bumped, and was staying out of their way as best they could. I thought I was floating in a safe zone, until I saw a little nose pop out of the water right next to me.

"Aww hi buddy," I said with delight. Second later, I was much less delighted as I was riding the back of an especially amorous manatee. According to eye-witness reports (aka Billy, his mom, and his stepdad) I was almost two feet out of the water at one point as the manatee breached out of the water and took me for a ride. Suffice it to say, it was the most terrifying five to ten seconds of my life. Unfortunately this was not caught on camera, although I'm told my face was absolutely priceless (I was internally panicking about capsizing and getting stuck in some sort of manatee lovefest that I wanted no part of).

After that, I decided I'd had enough of the manatee lagoon, so we paddled back out to the boat, not before catching some dolphins nearby as well! One of the coolest parts of this trip was all the wildlife we saw up close, and while the manatee experience took a turn for the worse at the end, my (not-so-secret) inner animal nerd was thrilled.

Apologies for my atrocious videographer skills. I'm already unsteady enough without getting overly excited about NATURE. 

This trip was the perfect mini-vacation and I can't thank Jan and Dave enough for hosting us! I don't think I can come up with anything that would have made our trip better...we had perfect weather and had a wonderful time kicking back with family (and a few tropical drinks and beers). I came back feeling totally refreshed, although sad that it meant Billy was leaving.

Now, on to the last two weeks of the horse show! I think I can, I think I can...