It doesn't seem like I have much to write about lately. I'm not sure if this is good or bad.

Most of my free time has been spent fishing and boat shopping. Before I get a boat, though, I need a place to put it. So, I've put a down payment on a boat slip. These are considered real estate here so it will take some time to complete the transaction. Once that is done, I'll need to have a lift installed. I'd like to do all of that before I actually purchase a boat. I'm sort of stretched financially as well, so I'd like to get some things paid off before I buy the boat. So, I'm not sure when this all happens.

In the meantime, here are some pics. I really need to get a good camera. The rainbow pic would have been awesome with a zoom. There was an osprey on that pole and I think framing him with the rainbow would have been awesome.

Storm



Rainbow after storm

I've been hesitant to post this because I feel really bad about killing this. I don't like killing any fish unless it is to eat or I'm using it for bait. But there was a story..........

I had 3 rods out and this guy hit one of the big rigs. I fought it for about 20 minutes and got it to the seawall but didn't have a way to unhook it handy. So, I parked the rod in the rod holder and got my dehooker. I ran back and was trying to dehook it when a fish hit one of my other rods (a smaller rig). This one was pretty tired so I set the rod back in the holder and ran over to the other rod. It was screaming. I was almost out of line when the fish inexplicably turned around and went the other direction. I reeled like a madman trying to regain line and followed the fish down the seawall.

There were 2 guys fishing about 100 yds. down and I yelled at them that I had a big fish and was coming their way. They got pretty excited about it and wanted to know what it was. I told them a big shark and they asked if they could have it. I was sort of not thinking and at the same time trying to figure out what to do with the other shark and I told them they could have it. They RAN to get it.

I fought mine for a while and it inexplicably turned around again and headed to where the first shark and 2 guys were. I could barely see but at least one of the guys had climbed into the water to try to corral that other shark. The shark was over 5 ft. and getting in the water with something like that is insane.

My fish finally dragged me towards them and by that time they had somehow gotten it up and on the ground. I fumbled to grab my phone and got the pic below. One of the guys had blood all over him. I couldn't figure out if it was his or the sharks. The two guys were asian and neither spoke english well so I couldn't really tell what was going on.

My fish started taking line out again so I turned to fight it some more. I turned back around and the guys had already dragged the shark out into the parking lot and out of sight. I never saw them again.

You will notice the difference between phone pictures and camera. I have this one
http://www.photographyblog.com/revie.../comments/P100. It is not something high class, but the difference between pictures with it and pictures with phone is HUGE.

I put a down payment on a boat today. I'm going to have some custom work done on it so I won't get it for a while.

I'm going to have a T-Top put on that is 6 inches higher than normal so I won't crack my head on the rod holders. And, I'm getting a custom cover made.

I've been looking at boats for about 6 months now and I finally made the decision. I was originally looking at 21 ft. boats but I bit the bullet and paid a little more for a 22 1/2 foot boat because I really wanted

Nice, that's nice. Years in the payoff but very satisfying.

My second tropical storm since I moved in. This is about the same as Colin. The water is about a foot below the seawall but it is high tide and should be receding soon. There is another high tide this evening but I'm hoping the storm moves enough that it won't be an issue.

Good times.

Good luck man. I expect you are getting hit full blast right about now.

Thanks.

The wind just never let up last night. High tide was around 3:00 AM so I kept getting up to check the water level. It got a little higher than those pics but not much. I feel pretty lucky since most of the area was flooded, and those north of me got hit pretty hard.

We are still getting a ton of rain but the wind has died down considerably. The worst seems to be over.

I'm glad to hear it. I couldn't imagine moving to a place and putting so much work into it only to have it take severe damage. First true hurricane to hit you in 11 years...it must be comforting to know you survived it unscathed.

Glad you're doing alright. Grats on the bigger boat too!

I'm now the proud owner of this fantastic piece of real estate. Boat slip #115.

I fished..... Well kinda. I put some rods out with bait and stuck them in the rod holders and drank beer and did other stuff until a fish got on. Anyway, most of the day yesterday. I caught a bunch of catfish but nothing else. A big cobia followed one of them up while I was reeling it in which was kinda cool.

There are two main types of saltwater catfish. One is a hardhead which doesn't get very big and isn't edible (well, some people eat anything so there is that). I think the biggest one I've ever caught was probably less than a pound. They are properly named. Their head is solid. They also have a dorsal spine that is to be avoided at all cost. It is like a big needle and it has a poison in it. It won't kill you or even make you sick but it hurts like heck for several hours. I can personally attest to this. There is an art to handling them. My approach is to not handle them at all.



The other type is called a gafftopsail but most people just call them gafftops. You can see how they get the "sail" part of their name. They get considerably bigger than hardheads and I've heard they are edible. I tried to clean one once but there isn't much good meat on them and I ended up tossing it. I've heard their spines are also poisonous but I've never been poked.



Here's the biggest one I caught yesterday. Actually, its' the biggest one I've ever seen, although I'm sure they get bigger. My foot is a size 12 if that helps.



As with most fish I catch, I tossed them all back.

Customer service, what is it?

I haven't heard anything about the boat in over a week. I called Josh and he said it was getting the t-top put on. I knew that. He told me that the guy doing the work would call me about getting a cover made. Never called. Josh told me he would take care of it.

To his credit, the guy called me fairly quickly and we discussed the cover options. I then asked about getting a depthfinder installed and he said he could do it but it would be about 2 weeks. Yikes, that isn't that hard of a job. But, he was nice enough to walk me through how to do it so I might give it a shot. I can do it but the problem is there isn't much room for error. Mess up and you have a hole in your boat. Anyway, I ordered the cover and hopefully I get the boat next week.

So, I have to pay an association fee for the slip. Only nobody seem to know how much or who to pay. I'm assuming it is the same place that I pay the condo fees but I'm not sure. I called the condo office and they have NO CLUE. This seems pretty standard. I'm pretty sure they don't know how to do anything but fine people for not picking up dog poop.

The really bad customer service was from the maid service I was using. I'll probably rant about that another day. 1st world problems, right?

I took all my boat slip paperwork to the condo office to have them do whatever it is they think they need to do.

The people working in the office are getting progressively better. But, they still don't seem to know much about what is going on. I still have no clue how much my slip dues are.

One of the requirements for keeping a boat in a slip is that I get insurance that names the association as an "interested party". Some guy just happened to be in the office at the time and started talking about that clause. He claimed to be in the insurance business and had worked with many condo associations. The said that clause is meaningless and the condo association gets zero value from it.

I lost another big shark tonight. Sharks are definitely winning.

Anyways, this one bit through a 275lb. wire leader.

On another note....................

Yesterday I had a pretty good day. Work was fine. I had some nice interactions with the condo office people. I talked to them for about an hour and made a couple of friends. I had a nice workout. Cleared some personal stuff off my plate. Hooked that shark. Just a better than average day.

And yet, this one minor thing happened. The details don't matter much but it was beyond insignificant. And, yet, I could not sleep due to obsessing about it. I would catch my self obsessing for 30 minutes or so in the middle of the night and try to redirect. Then my mind would go back to it again. It was really hard for me to control.

The funny thing is that when I got up and checked on the thing I was obsessing about it turned out to be a complete non-issue. This is almost always the case.

This is a fairly common thing for me. I don't know how to deal with this. I've tried redirection and that helps but I'm at a loss as to why I even enter this cycle. It's something I really want to work on but I'm not sure what sort of techniques are available.

Yes, meditation would probably be helpful. But I've found that when this cycle starts it's really hard to relax it away. I'm more interested in recognizing when my mind starts doing this and being able to nip it right then and there.

Your last sentence describes why meditation is helpful. Meditation isn't a relaxation exercise to do once your mind is racing. When you meditate, you notice when thoughts arise and practice letting them go before you get caught up in them and start obsessing over them. If you meditate for 10 minutes a day, you become good at recognizing when your mind starts to dwell on something and being able to nip it right then and there before you start obsessing about it. And the more you practice doing this when you meditate, the more you're able to do it when you're not meditating and just going about your life. So don't think of meditation of something to do to relax once your mind's already obsessing on something, but as a way of training your mind to recognize when thoughts arise and then letting these thoughts go so that your mind doesn't start obsessing in the first place.

Yeah, thanks. Thats a good reminder. I was pretty consistent with my meditation before I moved, but have done none since. I got off track with all the stuff i had to deal with. Now its going to be a bit harder because i spend so much time commuting, but i need to figure out a way.

In other news, i found out exactly what is covered with the flood insurance that is part my condo fees. It takes care of floors, walls, etc. But not cabinets. Or, personal belongings, obv. I also found out that these condis havent flooded in a long time, if ever. I talked to someone that has been through several huuricanes and she said the water never rose enough to flood the units.

So, ive decided not to get any homeowners insurance. Its expensive and i dont really own that much. Ill just assume the risk. Gl me.

I had a semi long phone conversation with my dad.

He was getting over (yet another) bout of pneumonia and was just generally depressed.

Im not always very sympathetic when he starts complaining. Hes been a negative person all my life and i tend to sort of dismiss how he feels.

But he was talking about his walks. He has a lot of trouble getting around and sometimes just getting down the hall is a monumental effort. He said he is able to get out to the courtyard occasionally.

He told me, when he does get outside it makes him feel, in his words, nostalgic. My dad has a green thumb and, other than his art, his plants were probably the most important part of his life. That, plus just getting outside so rarely when years ago that was such a given.

He said something that really got to me. He said "sometimes i just sit and wonder, how did it come to this?"

I havent always had a lot of empathy for my dad, but the feelings were strong today.

My upstairs neighbor caught some tuna today. He cooked me up some.

I honestly don't think there is anything that tastes better than fresh tuna.

I was supposed to pick up my boat today but they had an issue with the T-Top lights. I'm not sure exactly what, but they sent it back to the guy that put the t-top on.

In the mean time, I bought this:



For those that don't fish, it's a depthfinder. Well, it's more than that really.

The first depthfinders were simply that. You could see how deep the water was you were in and "stuff" in between. But it was hard to determine what the "stuff" was. Could be fish, could be grass, could be who knows. It was pretty crude but the depth part was very useful.




The newer ones have the feature called side mode. It tries to give a better picture of what is really on the bottom. This is supposed to be a real picture showing a tire pile and some other stuff. Pretty cool if you ask me.



And it has a map showing depths and publicly known structures (manmade stuff dumped in the ocean).



And you can buy a chip that has a bunch of other stuff like navigation routes, local restaurants, gas, etcl.

I originally wanted the t-top guys to install it but he said it would take him a while because his electronics guy is booked up. So, I thought maybe I'd take a crack at it. But, sheesh, this requires drilling holes in my new boat and I'm sort of scared to do this. I dunno.

I wish I could figure out a way to capture some of this stuff on camera well. It was really spectacular. The red cloud from the sunset, the white cloud, the dark storm cloud, and the clear sky all in one area. It was really spectacular.

Got my boat yesterday, parked it, and had to go to work. Bleh.

But, after a couple of trips to the store to stock up with boat "stuff", I took it on it's maiden voyage. Yippee!!

I previously owned a bass boat. This is a LOT more boat than that. It will take some getting used too, both towing it and driving/maneuvering it. But, it rides really smooth. I'm pretty happy with it. Not so happy with being in debt again but I had to bite the bullet some time and sooner is better than later.

Sweet. Name of boat?

i am extremely jealous.