Valentine’s Day

Valentine’s Day

Sunday 14th February 2021

Happy Valentine’s Day! We spent the day gazing into each other’s eyes, whispering sweet nothings and ignoring the outside world … or the equivalent of that when you’ve been married 33 years … gazing into our iPhones, talking loudly to each other (because one of us claims the other is deaf and the other doesn’t speak up), and ranting about the state of the world! Actually we ended up at a wedding, but not by intention. We decided to spend the day down at the Fort Zachary Taylor State Park and to try and catch some fish. We cycled down, picking up a bag of frozen shrimp from the bait shop on the way. When we arrived we didn’t start fishing immediately because we didn’t want our catch to be sitting around with no refrigeration all day. Talk about worrying about problems that may never happen! What we did was sit in the shade, enjoy the fresh breezes off the ocean and read our books. Around mid-day we moved away from the beach areas and started fishing off the rocks adjacent to the shipping channel into Key West. We caught nothing - not a bite, not a tremor, zilch. But it was fun. Then we realized that they were setting up for a wedding right next to where we were fishing and sure enough, at 3pm the party gathered, a brief ceremony took place and the happy couple departed. I have to say it was a beautiful location and the official set the dress tone with a purple shirt, bow tie, cut off black trousers and flip-flops. As Gloria mentioned, it’s a smart idea to get married on Valentine’s Day - that way you only have to remember to get one present a year to cover your anniversary and Valentine’s day. Unfortunately, my Valentine’s gift for Gloria never materialized … it was going to be fresh fish ...

Now we are back on the boat. We have goulash cooking on the stove and the frozen mango daiquiris were excellent. 

Mike

24 42.220 N, 81 06.131 W

A beautiful location for a wedding (iPhone)

The ceremony underway (iPhone)

A short video clip I shot on my iPhone from where we were fishing. You can see the super-yacht "M5" anchored, people paragliding in the distance and the final sailboat is "Breezin" which is a charter boat from the dock we are on, owned by a lovely guy called Dennis. Dennis has outstanding maneuvering skills with his boat - he backs at speed up the fairway and turns with perfection into his slip - I am envious of his talent