Orange Beach, Part 1, Oct 10-12

Sunday, Oct 10 - Happy Birthday, Anna 

Moon Jelly

After coffee and a bagel snack, Bill joined me for a morning beach walk. Bill shortened his walk to play tennis with Laura and Amanda. When I got back, it was time to cook our late breakfast/brunch.  Sausage links, waffles and scrambled eggs.  The waffles turned out good! Later Bill and I went down to the beach to sit with the girls for a while.  We had the whole set-up - umbrella, chairs and all.  A gentle breeze made it quite comfortable in the shade of the umbrellas.

Laura spent most of the afternoon on the beach.  Bill and I spent most of the afternoon on the deck.  Claire and Amanda went shopping.  We each had a good time in our own fashion.

Chinese take-out was planned for supper.   We had egg roll appetizer before our sunset walk, then dinner of various dishes after.  We (except Claire) finished the evening watching a major league baseball playoff game.  It went 13 innings before Boston had a 2-run homer for the win.

Monday, Oct 11

I woke up early, dressed quietly, poured a cup of coffee and went to the beach to watch the sun rise. I sat for a few minutes on a $40/day lounge bench, waiting and watching.  A little way down the beach, I spied an interesting piece of driftwood - or was it a dead fish.  A closer look and a picture were required.

Then a little further along was a great blue heron begging to be photographed.  I couldn't resist.

Ospreys in the air and dolphins in the water were hunting for breakfast.  And the sun was rising underneath the dark bank of clouds to the east.

Between a rock and
A dark place the sun also
Rises, faithfully.

Soon my coffee was cold and almost gone and it was time to return.  A perfect morning meditation.

We put the boat in at Boggy Point to ferry Laura, Claire and Amanda to what they call "Hermit Crab Island," locally known as Robinson Island in the pass.  They enjoyed a couple of hours on the beach there and Claire got her fill of hermit crab collecting.  Unlike when she was a child, she can now leave them behind.  Bill and I boated to the Caribe Marina. They had no live bait so we had to settle for frozen shrimp.  They also could not guarantee electricity if we rented dock space there so we declined.  We fished for a short while at the jetty and tested the "auto-lock" feature of our new trolling motor.  A GPS sensor operates the motor to keep it "locked" in place for fishing.  It seemed to work.  I caught 3 or 4 large pinfish which Bill used for cut bait.  He caught a needle-fish.  We also tried the motor under the bridge in a strong current and it worked there as well.  Good news!  

You never know what you might see in the pass.  A floating Tiki Bar!

The girls spent most of the afternoon at the beach. Laura treated us to Mexican at Pedros at Perdido (our favorite). They now have a nice outdoor patio. Today's sunset picture was taken on the way to the restaurant, from the Florida Gulf State Park beach.

Tuesday, Oct 12

An early morning beach walk is my meditation for the day - a time to be quiet and present in the moment. I missed the sunrise by about 15 minutes this morning.  Sunrise if a fleeting event and lasts only a few minutes while sunset seems to linger.  The motion of sun and earth hasn't changed, just my perspective.

As I walked, I noticed how many others have walked this way recently as evidenced by the multitude of footprints in the sand.

Leave only footprints

But footprints tell a story,

Trace of a being.

I prefer being on the beach early for sunrise and later for sunset.  I endure the beach during the middle parts of the day for the pleasure of being present with my children and especially my grandchildren.   Their joy and delight is my joy and delight.

Thoughts of enduring brought to mind the open I wrote, “Women Endure.”  Anna wanted me to use a more positive and uplifting term like overcome.  In order to over, we must first endure. That took my mind to the beautiful verse of scripture, “We take pride in our problems because we know that trouble produces endurance, endurance produces character and character produces hope.” (Romans 5:3-4, CEB).  And “Now faith, hope and love remain, these three things, and the greatest of these is love.” (1 Corinthians 13 (CEB).

When I returned, Amanda was up and soon Laura joined us on the deck. After breakfast we four women went to the beach and Bill went in search of an umbrella.  

Mid-afternoon, Bill and I took Claire to the airport in Pensacola for a 5 pm flight to Nashville and returned by way of Joe Patti Seafood for shrimp (to eat) and mullet for bait. 

Frank Patti calling numbers and harassing the "girls"

On our sunset walk, we saw a pair of manta rays in the shallow surf.