The Day of the Iguana

Another beautiful Gulf of Mexico morning greeted us as we began to stir. We sat in the shade of the awning watching people come and go while reading and getting quiet on the patio. PJ got into Facebook with her friends while I did little projects and cooked up some oats. For the first few days, I hadn’t seen any iguanas but all day today they seemed to seek me out. I walked over to Tiki Island and they were the masters of the rocks along the breakwater. Black ones, gray ones and green ones. I sat on a bench and watched them for a while. Definitely a change in the fauna from North Florida, trading armadillos for iguanas.

Things started warming up and it was soon time to get into the eighty degree water. We grabbed our goggles and jumped into the buoyed off swim area to kick around and see what we could spot along the rocks. It was cooling and refreshing. After amusing ourselves with that for a half hour or so, PJ got out and I swam a few serious laps back and forth.

Marsha from the RV club that had spent the weekend stopped by and chatted for a while. Her husband came over and mentioned that he’d gotten into to playing the Native American flute this past year or so. I pulled mine out he got his and showed me a few techniques but mostly just played a few tunes. We had fun and garnered a few odd looks from some of the locals passing by. We spent most of the day lounging on the porch, me playing guitar while PJ called friends back home and busied herself online

When we’d heat up, we’d toss the paddle boards into the warm gulf waters and paddle around jumping off every so often to keep cool. We headed south midday past the dolphin correctional facility where we could whistles and noises as the trainers put them through a routine for the paying customers. Their big sign out front touts research center, but it’s a money making show I guess researching what new tricks dolphins can be taught. The wind was blowing us back and PJ was getting tired of fighting it so we turned around and were whisked back on the current.

We walked to the front office to secure the best spot we could for our return here on the way back out. As we were walking by the pool we spotted another iguana on the deck looking to get in a swim. Cali likes it here. She slowly meanders around and although she usually eschews gated dog areas, she has thoroughly embraced the ‘bark park” here at Jolly Roger. It is a big grassy area with a few trees where she leisurely wanders around off leash while I hold down a bench under a jacaranda tree. A while later while PJ was talking on the phone, some fishermen on the pier saw four manatees saunter past. I grabbed my board and paddled out but by the time I got out there, the sea cows had managed to elude me. I stroked it all the way down by the bridge with no luck.

Being Sunday, the park emptied out and there’s only about 1/3 of the campsites occupied. We got in an afternoon rest inside then hung out some more on the patio. Now the iguanas are coming right up to our camp hanging on the sidewalk next to the water. I took this green guy’s picture and got a little too close and he did a leaping dive into the ocean and swam over to the boat dock and got out over there. Man they can move fast! All slow and lethargic looking then boom, lightning quick.

I’m outta here!

Safe!

As the sun was getting low, we ventured out for our evening paddle where we went north to this small cove and slowly paddled around the shallow water. The wind had calmed to nearly nothing and the water was clear as glass. We saw lots of small fish and then came upon a bunch of horseshoe crabs mating in the shallows. Pretty cool. We paddled back over in front of the dock area and sat out on the boards watching the sun go down on another gorgeous tropical day.

🎼”Let’s get it on” 🎺

Sponges