Let's Go Fishing !

On Friday, Kim and I went out on a party boat fishing for the very first time !  We went to Flying Fish Fleet in Sarasota. Nice, nice owners answered all our questions and concerns a week or so before we made reservations.

The office is actually a floating office....really rocks when the wind picks up.

...got up at 5 to get ready and showed up around 7am to pay, get our parking pass and use the bathroom. The boat is not allowed to open their restroom until they're 3 miles out so we walked to Marina Jack's to use theirs.

Caught the clouds over the Gulf of Mexico getting kissed by the morning sun over the harbor.

We took the Flying Fish...the large one of the right.

There were about 25-30 people in all.

Very excited, happy couple.

A little nervousness shown here....quickly went away as we pulled away from the dock.

Very happy now !

John Ringling Causeway going across Sarasota Bay in the distance.

We about to head out of Sarasota Bay into the Gulf...check out these great clouds.

Kim's been doing some studying on clouds so this day found some great examples.....

We went out about 8 miles...took over an hour...nice breeze...wonderful weather to watch the clouds, horizon and the faster fishing boats that flew by us !

I used the GPS on my Nokia phone to take a screen shot to show where we ended up to start fishing. The captain moved the boat three times to find fish. The first spot hit, then died, the second spot was nothing but the third spot turned out to be a winner.

The boat came to a rest and we all put our lines in the water. 45# test line with a sinker and hook. We had a bucket of cut up squid for bait. Our instruction were (1) put the thumb on the spindle (2) let off the free-spool-release (3) let the line go out about 45 feet to the bottom (4) when the line goes slack, throw the free-spool-release back on (5) catch fish.  

Kim is having a blast ! 

The guy behind me is wondering how come his fish is so much smaller !

Perch, Snapper, Grouper and more. The Grouper, however, had to be a certain size before keeping. Most had to be thrown back...under 20-22" I think.

This is about the size of what we caught. Some folks caught bigger ones...maybe double this size.

This little boy next to us kept yelling "I got a BIG ONE" but, in reality, he had not let his sinker go all the way to the bottom and the weight of it kept him thinking a BIG ONE was on his line. He's frantically reeled in his line many times only to find his bait on his hook.

...heading home...

Nice to see a brand new, clean American flag !

Saw a number of Magnificent Frigatebirds soaring high above us.

This species feeds mainly on fish, and attacks other seabirds to force them to disgorge their meals. Frigatebirds never land on water, and always take their food items in flight.It spends days and nights on the wing, with an average ground speed of 10 km/h (6.2 mph), covering up to 223 km (139 mi) before landing. They alternately climb in thermals, to altitudes occasionally as high as 2,500 m (8,200 ft), and descend to near the sea surface.[2] The only other bird known to spend days and nights on the wing is the common swift.

A terrific bird to watch and difficult to photograph.

The crew de-bones and filets the catch so we can take it home....which we did ! We took about 14 home.

Got out some Louisiana Fish Fry breading and grilled up a bunch on the stove with some grilled potatoes. Ymmmmm. How neat to catch your own fish and then eat them fresh.

A great, fun day....always wanted to do this and now we have. Next time, we'll charter a smaller boat and go for BIG ONES !

Kim and Steve

The Da Vinci Machines Exhibition

This Leonardo da Vinci exhibition showing in Bradenton, Florida, is one of only three in the world. One is in Australia, one is in Florence, Italy and one is the one we saw.

Over 60 machines, meticulously hand-crafted by Florentine artisans, bring Da Vinci’s amazing visions to life and provide fascinating insight into many of the machines of our current, modern world: the tank, the helicopter, the hang glider, the bicycle, the modern warship. All sprang from the mind of Leonardo da Vinci.

Here's the write up from the website:

Experience Da Vinci’s genius brought to life as you witness actual working models and machines carefully reconstructed from Da Vinci’s own drawings, notes and designs. See them move. Touch and control them. And be awed by the ceaseless magnitude of intellect and invention way ahead of its time. 



http://www.bradentongulfislands.com/davinci/

As we entered the auditorium, we walked through a gallery of some of his portraits. Of course, he is, and was, known as a world famous painter. Ever heard of the Mona Lisa? or the Last Supper?

That light is not part of the painting, it's coming from the overhead light.

Then, as you enter the main auditorium room, we were awestruck at the numerous displays throughout the room, the walls, the upper walls and the ceiling.

Notice the extra large posters of his paintings above the exhibits?

I loved the way they took his drawings, enlarged them and put them on the wall. Nicely done.

This enlargement is right next to the small scale models and drawing which makes for a visual buffet. 

The room was set up in categories, like "war" and "mechanical", and "flight". Then the way the exhibits were set up with one of da Vinci's drawing and a descriptive write-up. Next to it was the model that the artisans from Florence constructed. I was told that they even went to the same forest that da Vinci used to use the same wood. They had one continuous movie playing about his life (about 45 minutes long and very interesting) and the other was a man describing many of the exhibits on display, which helped us understand them better.

So...let me place a number of these exhibits that you can read and browse through so you can experience it like we did (well, sort of).

A life preserver !

The forerunner to modern day scuba gear.

Water skis

There was a very large over-sized book in the gift shop of all his painting, drawings, sketches, etc. Here is a couple of pages showing his study on cloth and folds for one of his painting. Amazing work.

I bet you didn't know that Kim was the inspiration for the Mona Lisa !

We spent about 4 hours in the exhibit hall and came away with a greater appreciation for Leonardo da Vinci, I would encourage you to look up his biography sometime.

All the exhibits photos we took are located here as well:
https://picasaweb.google.com/100376105788369441882/LeonardoDaVinci?authuser=0&feat=directlink


Hope you enjoyed this one !

Kim and Steve