JULY 11 2008 DAY 6

Today is our final day in Mexico Beach. We are headed home tomorrow and looking forward to seeing Oma & Nana and sleeping in our own beds. Today, we took off early to the pier for fishing. As we got to the pier we could see some bad weather rolling in from the north. Nicholas was able to cast off a couple of times and caught a puffer fish and some other small fish before we had to hurry home before the storm.
The rain stopped shortly after lunch so we spent the remainder of the afternoon fishing off the pier. Kelly read on the beach below. Again, we met a lot of our same fishing buddies and we all enjoyed one last afternoon before it was time to head back to GA.

Above is Nicholas before the lunchtime storm. You can kind of see at the top middle of the picture were it is raining The wind was ridiculous. I had to keep my head down to keep my hat from flying off of my head.

This is the last view of the pier before we left. This was a great vacation. Nicholas was very well behaved and we had a lot of fun together. He thought this was going to be his worst nightmare being with only girls, but he had a great time. We spoiled him, but he deserved it. For the last 4 years of coming down, Nicholas says the same thing every time. He says "I wish we could live here".

Someone on the pier caught a baby shark. He tossed him back in quickly, but the shark washed to the shore. This little girl was playing near the shark totally unaware of it being there until it started to flip around. Then the mom comes over and tries to put the shark back in the water. It was interesting to see how many hands held the shark without hesitation.

JULY 10TH DAY 5

Today was a day about Nicholas and Aunt Kelly. We started the day by going and meeting our IL friends at El Governor. This is the only place in Mexico Beach where you can rent wave runners and para sail. Because Kelly has always subscribed to preserving her youthful white skin, there are many things she's been unable to do by not vacationing at the beach- water sports. We rented 2 wave runners and took off out into the ocean. Nicholas was riding with me and Kelly was riding with Amy and apparently spent a lot of the time insisting that Amy slow down. While we were out in the ocean, we saw lots of jelly fish and a sea turtle. Nicholas knows the rules. As long as he is holding on tight, to me, we are not going to fall off because falling into the ocean, after seeing what is being pulled out from the pier, is not an option for me.
Soon after we got back from playing on the wave runners, Nicholas wanted to para sail. I've done this several times and even once with Amy a couple of years ago. Kelly and Nicholas were the only two who hadn't, so they became a double and went together with our friends from IL.

This is the view from the beach of Kelly and Nicholas para sailing. Nicholas thought this was the coolest thing although he did not see many marine life from this height, only jellies.

The final dip before they pull you in. Nicholas was a little nervous about being dipped because the reality is, there are sharks in this water, but Kelly talked him through it by telling him to kick his feet and if a shark gets near, hit him right in the 'button'.

The para sailers had to ride to and from the boat on this banana because of the jelly fish. Nicholas is sitting on the back as they are backing in to the shore. While they were on the banana, water washed up as did a sea horse. Both Kelly and Nicholas got to see a sea horse in its natural environment.

We only stayed at the beach until after lunch and then had to head back because Aunt Amy had to catch her flight from Panama City International back to DC. She was unhappy to leave and despite Nicholas thinking spending time with the girls was going to be his 'worst nightmare', he was unhappy that she was leaving. Our foursome is back down to three until Saturday when we have to leave. We did take a trip to the pier, after dinner, to visit with some of our younger friends who have included us into their fishing loop. One of them caught a 6 ft hammerhead and it was laying on the cutting board at the pier. Seeing the hammerhead, reconfirmed why swimming in the ocean, further than a couple of feet from the shore, is not an option for me.

JULY 9 2008 DAY 4

We had 'family' day today and got up early to go to St Joseph's State Park. This beach was rated #1 beautiful in the US in 2004. We got there early and the beach was empty, clean and beautiful.
Nicholas treated his friends to some shrimp that we had left over from pier fishing the day before.

The puppet master. I was hopeful one would take the shrimp from his hand if he held it up, but they wouldn't so threw the shrimp in the air and the fastest bird won the prize.

#1 beach looking south.

After the beach, we headed back to Mexico Beach and went fishing. Yesterday we met a family from IL. The mom is named Brandi and one of the son's was Nicholas age. We ran into this same family at St. Josephs and made plans to meet on the pier after lunch for fishing. Shortly after we arrived on the pier, this shark was caught.

Nicholas decided that we would fish with squid and not shrimp. We caught nothing, but he had a fun time playing with the squid.

JULY 8 2008 DAY 3

Day 3 started off a little shady when I tried to put sunscreen on Nicholas and he became very upset. I quickly retreated back to my room to recover and fell asleep. Nicholas ended up watching TV and we did not leave the house until after lunch and after the mid afternoon shower. We opted out of the beach so that we could go to the pier to fish. There were few fishing when we got there, but we quickly made friends with Chad (above) and had lots of help throughout the afternoon.
Nicholas' first catch was a small catfish. We learned, from Chad, not to touch the gills because they will sting you.

Second catch was a remora. I think this is the remora.

The view of the pier from the end.

Nicholas' 3rd catch was a puffer fish.

My view from the pier after 4 hours, I had to sit down and hide from the sun. Kelly and Amy were somewhere out on the beach having a good time.

After leaving the pier, we walked down the beach and spent time with Kelly and Amy. We started talking about Gumps and shortly there after, we saw this rainbow.

JULY 7 2008 DAY 2

Amy flew in from DC so we got up this morning and headed to the Panama City International Airport. It was about 1/20th the size of Atlanta Hartsfield International, but designed exactly the same. After we picked Amy up, we went to lunch and then to Walmart for fishing supplies. Today's activities did not include swimming in the ocean, rather we fished.
These were the regulars on the pier and going strong when we got there. Amy and Kelly rested on the beach, while myself and Nicholas took our spot along the pier.

This was Nicholas' first catch. He was using shrimp as bait and he almost reeled this crab in, but the crab let go about 3 inches over the water. We threw the other half of the shrimp into the water as a gift to the crab for participating.

Kelly and Amy relaxed on the beach below.

These boys caught a small sand shark that Nicholas touched before it was thrown back into the water.

Tonight was our first time on the pier fishing. We observed what others were doing and using because our experience is limited. We are ready to go back tomorrow with the right bobbers and weights because we are going to catch something- this is what Nicholas tells me. After we left the pier, we headed back to the condo to wash the fish guts and shrimp smell off of us.

JULY 6 2008 DAY 1

From Atlanta, it is approximately 310 miles to Mexico Beach, FL. I've always thought to take the mileage, divide by 80 and that would equal the amount of time that it would take for me to arrive at my destination. This is not a reliable way to calculate the time when half of the trip is not on the expressway. We left Atlanta at 9:30am and arrived around 4pm. This includes a stop for lunch at the Waffle House in Dothan, AL.
Unpacking the vehicle, once we arrived, took 10 minutes. We brought food, fishing gear, clothes, towels, drinks and the Wii. Nicholas was in charge of opening the front door and then would grab the occasional item from the back of the Jeep to carry in. He couldn't carry much because he only had one available hand. The other hand was holding a ziplock bag of money, or as he referred to it, his dough. Prior to leaving Conyers, Oma gave him a wad of money, $116 dollars to be exact. $40 in five dollar bills and the rest was ones. The money was from Oma for him to treat Aunt Kelly and Aunt Amy. At first, Nicholas said this would not become beer money, but after hearing that a beer would only cost a couple of dollars, he warmed up to the idea of paying for the occasional beer or two.

I thought I would be able to take a short nap when we arrived. Nicholas was even cooperating and said he would watch TV while I slept. We got in bed and I couldn't do it. I just laid there with him watching Gladiator. After about 30 minutes of not sleeping, unusual I know, we put our bathing suites on and headed to the beach. Nicholas wanted to fish, I wanted to wait on the fishing for another day. We settled on bringing the nets and a couple of pieces of shrimp cocktail for bait and catching fish the easy way.

Apparently, shrimp cocktail, although the same as chum, is not chum. I guess it was not smelly enough because we attracted nothing. Perhaps the fish were tired of navigating through the tons of seaweed that was washing ashore as we got to the beach. The seaweed was bad this afternoon. I am not versed in seaweed, but what I am used to seeing is the kind that looks like a plant. This was something different. This was green with a wet paper towel type of texture. I scooped a lot in Nicholas' net, squeezed out the water and the end result looked like a wet wad of paper.

This is a view towards the south. The pier is where we like to walk to in the evenings to see the people who are fishing. Unfortunately, it did not appear that the fish were biting this evening. There were several fishermen from those who threw nets into the water to the more typical rod and reel.

Our attempt to catch dinner.