If ever there was a day for a 360 camera...

 

Today was that day.  Too bad I didn't bring it along.

We planned to go out in the boat today.  Joan made us a picnic lunch; I took the cover off the boat and got it ready to go.  Breezy, but a beautiful day.  We shoved off with a thought in mind: this will be our last boat outing this season.  In the next day or two, we'll go out to the storage unit to get the trailer.  Pull the boat out probably Wednesday, get it cleaned up and fuel drained, then take it out to storage.  We are ready to switch gears and get focused on hauling the scoots north.

But today, it was all about enjoying the boat.  "What's that about the 360 camera thing in the title, Jim?"  Thanks for asking.  Rather than mess with the editing that goes along with the 360 cameras, I suggested we just take a still camera along... in case we see any dolphins.

It was Dolphin-Palooza... it has been a long time since we've seen this many in one trip.  At one time, there were literally dozens of them, any direction we looked.  Yes, a 360 camera attached to the front of the boat would have shown that.  But, I'm getting ahead of myself.

We shoved off from the dock, heading down our canal...

Yeah, we passed some birds posing along the way, but neither of us wanted to mess with the camera.  "Let's just go enjoy some time on the water."  With plans to pull the boat soon, I was looking to burn some fuel.  The breeze kept things sporting, but this small pontoon is quite comfortable.  Even when Border Patrol blew by us with two boats.  Cruising east in the ship channel, we saw dorsal fins ahead.  Before long, it was lots of dorsal fins.

I couldn't take it any longer, and grabbed the Nikon to get a couple photos...

After a while, other boats started heading towards us.  First, a couple excursion boats, then other pontoon boats and flats boats...

We just did our own thing, giving the dolphins plenty of space for what must have been some really good fishing.  Then, this was unusual...

Danny B is a head boat that takes people out for bay fishing... not a fishing pole in sight.  From the looks of it, a family must have chartered the boat, and they wanted to get in on this dolphin watching.  In over 20 years of seeing this boat on the water, we have never seen them do anything but fishing.  Plenty of other boats on the water, both excursion boats and private boats; I am guessing the commercial boats were having a good holiday weekend.

But for now, it was all about the dolphins all around us...

When a shrimper went by on his way to the Gulf, we watched this excited dolphin bow surfing...

We decided to call it a day, and headed for home.  This big fella went by us, also heading for the Gulf...

IF we had brought along the 360 cameras, I would have had hours of work editing all that video.  As it was, we spent far more time just enjoying the views rather than getting photos.  We saw all kinds of fun dolphin behavior today, most of it captured in our "mental bank cameras."  

Back at home, Joan brought Rufus down to the boat while I was cleaning it.  No, we didn't take him out today - he got a nice nap in while we were out.