2025 December: For the birds

 9 December 2025

Today, being Tuesday, I grabbed my art supplies and headed over to the library. It was an overcast day, cool, with a stiff breeze. I decided to walk and made sure I had my phone handy to grab pictures along the way. 

Cloudy day at Marlin Bay

My route takes me through the marina and past Keys Fisheries. As I walked through the building, I noticed Marley and Reef were selling their "Elf Honey Buns".

Walking the street to the library, I passed a boat with a dive flag waving in the breeze. Usually that means the diver is in the water.

Dive flag - where's the diver?

The not-so-lovely smell of old fish traps assailed me on my walk to the library. 

Today I noticed that a stack of brand new, non-smelly traps had been piled up on the lot.

Brand new traps!

Today's project at the library was to make holiday cards. The instructor had sample pictures for ideas. I decided to copy one using colored pencils. 

Hot Chocolate anyone?

The library had quite a lot of decorations on display like the one below celebrating a "Grinch Christmas".

"Welcome to Who-Ville"

While we did our art, the instructor had jazzy music playing and showed pictures from Charlie Brown's Christmas. 

Clark had guitar practice at the church this afternoon, and I promised to be back by noon. With the winds pushing the boat away from the dock, we wanted to be sure I could get back on the boat. It is always safer if he is there to assist me. Art class ended around 11:30, so I had some time to take a stroll before returning to the boat at noon. I decided to take a stroll through Keys Fisheries.

It turned into a study in birds!

Heron

Sea Gull - "You looking at me?!"

Egret and friends

Pelican coming in for a landing!

I saw a lot of birds on fish-watching duty!

From the Keys Fisheries property, I got a good view of Faro Blanco to the west

and Marlin Bay Marina to the east.

Walking the road back to Marlin Bay I saw even more birds.

Maybe the birds should buy this boat

They've already taken ownership of it

Waiting for a fishing boat to return to dock

Next to multiple signs that said "Private Property - No Fishing", I saw a man fishing off the dock. I would never have noticed him if the pelicans hadn't given away his position. They were watching to see what he caught!

A little further along, down the side street by the fisheries, I saw a number of pelicans on perches of various sorts.

Coming in for a landing!

As I finally arrived back at Marlin Bay, I discovered why the second pedestrian entrance to the marina has been closed off as long as we have been here this season.

Redoing the pavers!

I noticed more buildings with tarps over them today.

The sign in front of the nearest one was not surprising given the fumigation going on.

Immediately after we ate lunch, Clark got his stuff together to go to the church for band practice. He told me that he found out from the Brompton bikes salesman in St. Pete that the local bike repair shop sells the tubes for our British bikes - not tires, just tubes! Even though Clark already has two orders in place, we discussed and agreed that a "bird in hand" is better than several on order. 

He said he would stop by the bike repair store when he was out and about this afternoon. When he got back from practice, he had a tube for my bike. He said the weather looked better before practice to make the side trip to the store than the rain forecast for late afternoon when he would be done at the church, so he picked it up before practice. 

So, for the nth time, Clark changed to work clothes and worked on my bike tire. Sad to say, he is getting good at it! The bike is back together. He finished after dark, so it has not been "tested" yet. We are both hoping that using a new tube will solve the problem once and for all. 

After dinner, we relaxed by watching a Christmas RomCom movie.