No Sharks to Feed

No beach to walk on. No bridge too far. Nowhere to run to and nowhere to hide. No time for sergeants. No capacity for doughnuts. No time left. Nothing to do but wait.

Anyway, this is the image that I wanted to include in the previous post but it wouldn't let me. Plenty of man-o-war at the beach yesterday but they were still letting people swim. Got some sun and much exercise. May go back Saturday. Saw one leatherback nest in the park. Not much else to report.

They Might Be Chum

They could be fish food. They were expendable.

There were sharks in the water Thursday and Saturday, as well as man-o-war, along with people trying to swim. I was thinking about what the tag lines for a coming-attractions trailer for a movie about the beach would be, and those were the portents of doom that I was playing around with in my head on my walk.

These shots are manifestations of the same ice crystal refraction phenomenon that I've referred to in previous blogs; these pictures are all in chronological order. There was another picture that I wanted to post, but apparently five is the limit (grr).

I witnessed a few fishermen catch a few pompano, but again far too few for my tastes. I saw the remains of a brown pelican in between where the two shots I have posted are, so it looks like he did eat it. I'm also in the middle of a scathing set of e-mails that I've unleashed on the unsuspecting contest people; I'm currently waiting for the final response which will tell the tale.

Otherwise it's Easter Sunday and I decided to skip today at the beach; I simply felt I needed the rest more than the exercise. There's a nice breeze right now in my apartment but I'll be closing up the windows and turning on the air soon; most if not all of my neighbors don't share my tastes in music, movies or television, so I try to spare them as much as possible.
I was approached twice on my walk Saturday. The first time, it was the same bald guy in the morning who keeps trying to convert me to his religion. I blew him off, but he doesn't seem to take go to hell for an answer. In the afternoon, on my way back to my car, some fool advised me he had a quick question and then asked me how he could get baby blue OP shorts such as what I was wearing. When I began explaining that as far I knew, they didn't exist in the known universe, he interrupted me to specify that he wanted my particular pair. When I duly informed him that they were highly coveted, he backed off. Whether he was in fact a homosexual or straight trying to ascertain if I was or he simply didn't know what the word 'coveted' meant, I'm not sure because my gaydar didn't go off (for those interested in what gaydar could be, what it might entail and how it may be used, I suggest you visit the website of the true originator of the term: http://www.joanhilty.net/ and tell her I sent you. She is seriously a scream, so I also recommend you peruse the entirety of her site. She is very talented and frequently funny with a point to make; the only reason she's not more widely distributed is because of prejudice--plain and simple. At the book fair in Miami in November, she had two strips of hers up in a comix exhibit that, fond fool that I am, I failed to take pictures of, because my camera does have a 'Documents' mode, but oh well. Reading her 'bitter girl' strip [which is not bitter at all, by the way] helped me understand the difference between actual lesbians and Carolyn and Brandy, who are simply two really attractive straight women without boyfriends [at least, initially] who just happen to have the hots for each other. But it's not only sex; they do have a relationship and they do care about each other). I might be expanding this post later, but currently Parmesan steak fries are calling my name from the kitchen, and as I've previously stipulated, their siren song is indeed music to my ears.

Possible SHARK

& Bluefish Activity [ <^={ ] [.] Such was the caution that greeted potential ocean swimmers at Ocean Reef Park over the weekend (cue the Jaws music and the James Earl Jones booming voiced harrowing narration [Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the water...]). Saturday morning there were fishermen pulling bluefish out of the water with great abandon, but this is not my thing, so I left them to it. Below that you can see the proverbial flock of seagulls (this was taken from the northern end of the park facing north up into Lost Tree Village, the farthest point that you can see being the end of North Palm Beach and the beginning of Juno Beach), most facing into the wind but some watching the east (again, left-click any of these for a larger version). As these pictures, all taken Sunday, attest, it was beautiful out, albeit a little chilly. But the breeze was out of the north, my personal favorite, and so it made for a wonderful weekend all around--sun, exercise and honeys abounded.

But there were some man-o-war around, and in some sections, such as this one, the northern end of MacArthur Park but south of where the seagulls were, they littered the beach (remember, man-o-war are like rats or cockroaches in a house--for every one you see, there are like twenty-some that you don't--in this case, in the water).

Not many people out and those few that were complained about the breeze, that it was freezing. Well, it was freezing only if you sat around doing nothing. I can attest that if you moved around, the sun felt very nice indeed.

Down at the inlet, I saw either dolphins or sharks jumping out of the water.

When I returned to Ocean Reef around one o'clock, a fisherman had hooked something very big that was fighting him, which means it wasn't a manta ray. But whatever it was broke his line and took everything, so I guess we'll never know. Rest assured, I am making substantial progress on part 5 of the sequel; those waiting patiently will be richly rewarded.