New Year in South florida

December was an enjoyable month in Palm Beach. It has been consistently 70-80 degrees and sunny with water temperatures at 75. Our captain spent the month in Spain with his wife and kids. In his absence, Scott, the former captain of Kaleen, lived with us for the time. Scott is always up for a good time.

Mike and I took the first half of the Advanced Open Water certification with an obnoxious instructor whose only redeeming quality was that he brought his underwater camera along for the dives. I guess thats not a quality. Here are some of those picturesWe saw a loggerhead turtle, a green moray eel, a couple of lobster, some octopii, and a bunch of tropical fish. We have cooler looking spotted eagle rays that swim under our boat, but I havent gotten a picture of one of them yet. Here is the eel that we saw. It had crazy, unblinking zombie eyes. He just sticks his head out of the rocks and and stares at fish until they give up and let him eat them. You can see the frog fish's fat lips in the bottem right of the picture. The fuzzy white splotch just above his upper lip is a clear appendage that is meant to resemble a shrimp. The fish waits for a small baitfish to go for the shrimp-appendage, then it gulps that little baitfish down. Man, do those baitfish ever get it good!

Since then, we have snorkled over to the blue heron bridge. my camera takes some decent underwater photos as well, so we have had some fun with that.Here a picture of a Jack Crevalle that mike caught.

Mom, Dad and Katherine came down for a few days during christmas. We went out on the center console, caught a few snook, hung out on south beach for a day and otherwise just hung out and had a great time. It is weird to wake up on christmas morning and go to the beach. Katherine, send me some of your good pics. Ill put the ones of the monster fish you caught on here. Heres one of the many snook that we have caught down here. Delicious.

I bought a surfboard for $10 at a thrift store. Its only 6 feet tall and very diffucult to ride. waiting for some good surf and ill give it a try again.

Tony from Newport and some of his college friends came down and we went to the Hard Rock Casino in lauderdale for a night, then south beach for the next day, then Key West for the following night. We were able go for a boat ride, snorkel, and see some roosters(everywhere in key west). Mike Bowman and I almost caught one. There were also Key deer, which are tiny deer that only live on one of the keys. They are only about the size of a large dog and and very friendly. That was a fun and exhausting weekend. Here are the cheap memosas that started it all.




New Years Eve was a blast. it was a house party that never ended. The next day's trip down to south beach with the boss and his family went surprisingly smoothly, despite never having gone to bed the night before. I think it is OK to party your face off every once in a while, and I believe that that was my once for a very long while.

This last picture was taken with my camera earlier today. The structure is a sunken sailboat about 100 yards from our boat.

I am still thinking about doing something different. I know I said this a month ago, but I am very hesitant to leave the yachting industry for a ski break if its going to be a pain in the ass to get back in.

UPDATE: I just watched "That's It, That's All," an incredible snowboarding movie. Either this boat starts doing something cool(unlikely) or I get a potential job in the carribean(50/50) or I am snowbound by my birthday, Jan 25th. thats it, thats all.