Orb Days

Fun times at the Orb again. (And winter). I've been back at the Orb for a couple of weeks with my friends. It's always a nice time with good food and wine. They bought a new pool table and with the wine cellar, bar, dart board and deck the lower level has become the hangout.

Just so I didn't completely miss out of winter there were a couple of snow storms and some very cold days. It did make a good time to be out working in the woods. We made our own "skid road" to slide the old fallen trees down the hill. That's where one new tool helped: a Honda Recon 250 quad ATV. It's been on my list for a long time and with 14 hilly acres to clean up it came in handy. Dragging trees and brush and hauling gear. The other new tool added was a wood chipper. Instead of having to burn or remove the debris anything under 3" got chipped. Anything bigger went to line the ATV / hiking / deer trail. The trail from last summer looked good and leaves easily raked off. It will be interesting to see what things look like when all the trees leaf out this spring.

The deck got a finishing touch with some lattice underneath. All in all it was good to be back at base camp. The RV got cleaned out and reset. I picked up my cargo trailer, loaded up the ATV and it will be westward bound.

February by the Numbers

This month was spent in the Florida Keys and back at the Orb in Missouri. While I has wanted to skip winter it was good to see a little snow. At least here the sun still shines. My friends will be heading back overseas to work and I'll be ready in a few days to head out again. Destination unknown.

A herd of Missouri Deer.  Reminds me of a Bev Doolittle Painting.  Can you find the 11 deer?

Miles Driven: 2,152

Gallons of gas: 302

Cost of Gas: $1,143

Camping Fees: $150

Food: $914

New tool (toy?) purchased: 1 (To be described in future post :-)

Trip to Date ( May - Feb)

Miles driven: 19,164

Gallons of gas: 2637

Cost of gas: $9,671

Camping fees: $3,063

States: 31 (added Alabama)

Days worked: 6 (not including the scuba diving "work")

Days missing work: 0

Time under water:  9 hours 36 minutes

Salt water to road salt

I'm heading Missouri to visit my friends at the orb but along the way stopped on the Florida panhandle gulf coast.

Manatee Springs State Park.  No manatees but all the black things in the trees are turkey vultures.

Friendly deer.

Sunset at Grayton Beach State Park.

Same spot at sunrise.

It might look like snow but these are the sand dunes along beach.

Grayton Beach Florida Gulf.  Other side of the dunes.

You know it's cold out when there's ice in the windshield fluid bucket.

Parked back at the Orb!  Snow on the ground.

Miles driven:  2157 through 8 states in 6 days.

Music:  Alabama in Alabama

Temp change:  80 degrees in Key Largo  24 degrees in Missouri

Precautions:  Sun screen to frostbite.

Glad to be back.

Sunset on the Keys

Well time has run out on my time in the Keys. One of my original goals for this trip was to avoid the winter in Seattle and spend it in Florida or at least someplace warm and sunny.  I can say mission achieved.  Here are some more photos.

Sunset on the Bay.

A rare calm morning.

An afternoon on the dock of the bay.

It's hard to describe the color of the water over the reef.

Checking out the new rocks.

Can you spot the fish?

On the last dive of the trip I took a tour around the farm.  This Goliath Grouper was hanging out in a "cleaning station".

The farm besides being a place to grow live rock is also a new habitat for fish and sea creatures.  It provides a place for them to hide out from larger predators and feed on what's growing on the rocks.  The cleaning stations are places where the larger fish stop to let the smaller fish clean off parasites etc.  Turtles have been seen nearby and there is evidence they use the rocks to scrape their shells against.

Another resident.  Grey spotted Eel.

Smile for the camera!

There are also green eels that hang out around the farm.  They like hiding in the piles of rocks.

The new "Patio" addition added this trip.

This is what things look like underwater.

This is what they look like underwater with a flash.

This school of bar jacks was swimming around under the boat.  It was a little interesting being in the middle of a mass of bait fish while hanging on the anchor line for a safety stop.

They are hard to see because it's a night photo but two large manatees stopped by the house dock one night. 

A nice place to spend a month.

January by the Numbers

January seemed to be about staying put.  Asheville and Key Largo.  Two nice places to be.  One place to miss winter.

Miles Driven: 1,202

Gallons of gas: 200

Cost of Gas: $708

Camping Fees: $150

Food: $851

New toys purchased: 1 

Trip to Date ( May - Jan)

Miles driven: 17,012

Gallons of gas: 2335

Cost of gas: $8,528

Camping fees: $2,869

States

Overnighted: 24

Driven through: 30

Days worked: 6 (not including the scuba diving "work")

Days missing work: 0

Time under water:  2 hours

Between a rock and a wet place.

While it might seem I'm only here for the weather it's also about the rocks and diving. Tim has been "growing" live rocks for 16 years. We picked up 3000 lbs of coquina rock from a supplier in Florida on the way down. That's about 50 five gallon buckets.

Pile of rock at the supplier.

Coquina (a Spanish word for "tiny shell") is a limestone conglomerate material named for the shells of the small mollusks it contains.  The fort in St Augustine, FL is made out of over 150 million pounds of coquina all quarried and built by hand starting in 1598.

Working on the rock.

To increase the surface area of the rock and add more interest holes are drilled.  Eventually the rock will end up in someones salt water fish tank.

A nice day at the rock bin.  Water cooled drill bit.

A finished batch.

The rock is only found along the coast of Florida and is form 11,500 to 1.8 million years old.

Close-up of some of the rock.

Occasionally there are some large shells.

A view of the farm from about 15 feet below the surface.

At the farm.

Some of my newly drilled rock ready for planting on the rebar.

Almost ready rock.

Packing buckets.

Once the buckets are loaded below float bags filled with air are used to raise them to the surface.  A lot easier then pulling 30 pounds of rock through 50 feet of water.

Up and away.

Float bag hauled in.

After a few years under the sea.  A finished rock ready for display.

Small sea urchin along for the ride.

Here is a link to the Live Rock website.