Heads or tails...

Nothing to do with flipping a coin.  Lots of both out on the boat today.

This morning, Joan asked, "How would you like to go on a boat ride with me today?"

"You're inviting me along?" I asked.

"Sure.  I know this captain guy."

"I thought maybe you could drive, decide where we'll go, and I'll sit back and relax."

It didn't play out that way (I had to drive).  Still, lovely company on the boat today.

It was mostly cloudy, with the "chance" of precip.  A small chance, so we took rain jackets - a guarantee we won't need them.  Yesterday was about the flat water and calm conditions; today, I was looking for some dolphins!

Heading out...

It didn't take long to see our marine mammal friends...

We had them to ourselves for a while, then the University of Texas RGV boat came by...

Lots of grade school age kids onboard.  They passed close by to check out the dolphins we were watching...

Get the "heads or tails" in the title?  Lots of dolphin faces and tails today.

Crew photos...

Oh, and dolphins...

The game warden passed by slowly...

Pretty sure he was looking to see if we had any fishing gear onboard.  Nope.  These guys do...

Back to the dolphins...

Thriller, the fast excursion boat, came up the ship channel a bit, paused for a moment, then took off again...

And, dolphins...

This was interesting...

It wasn't a missed shot - this dolphin was "blowing bubbles" just under the surface.

Looking to the west, we could see this coming our way...

Time to head for home.  No, we didn't get rained on.  Another nice day out there - a couple dolphin babies along with the adults.  Always a treat.

Lovely. Just lovely...

No, not me.  Stop, you're making me blush.  Today was an absolutely glorious day!

You might understand why I'm excited about this had you seen the weather forecast for the week: thunderstorms all week long.

Not even close today - the temp was in the low to mid-80s, very light east southeast breeze (less than 5 mph), and clear blue skies!  Yep, just lovely.

Joan went to the grocery store; when she got back, I had the boat ready.  Time to get out and enjoy this beautiful day...

Looking west as we exited our canal, we saw this...

A barge beached on our island.  Not that unusual - sometimes they do this while they wait for other traffic to clear.  We turned east instead, heading through our swing-bridge...

Out into the Laguna Madre...

South, then into the jetties area...

This is as pretty as we've seen the water this season - lovely color, nearly calm.  Well, until we got further out in the jetties... it went from flat to about a 2 foot swell.  Then, 3 foot.  Four.

I would not normally take this little pontoon out in "4 foot waves," but these were swells: like driving over small hills with plenty of room between them (the "period" for you seafaring folks).  Like riding a kiddie roller coaster.  Looking at the photo above, you can see the line between the aqua color in the Laguna, and the deeper blue-green in the Gulf.  This is as far out as we've taken the pontoon (used to spend a lot of time out in the Gulf with the Corsair trimaran) - coming back, I took a photo of the chartplotter...

Really, we were further out than that.

Coming back in the ship channel, we looked around for dorsal fins.  Nope.  This shrimper went by...

As the shrimper passed by us, I saw one lone dolphin playing in his bow wave.  No, we didn't chase after him.  You'll have to trust me on that, too.  By this point, I was on a mission: it was approaching 3:00 and my belly was telling me it was time for lunch.  Past time.

BurgerFi had some burgers with our names on 'em.

I rinsed the boat, and we headed for the burgers.  Well, with a 15 minute pause at our swing-bridge since it had opened for a passing double barge.

The burgers were especially good.  After chow, we took a drive by the beach... the Tuesday after a holiday weekend, it was not crowded.  Plenty of folks playing in the water.

Back home, little Izzy was ready for her supper.  Then after, some couch time...

Yeah.  Lovely.

:-)