It’s been a busy few days. We had to go to check on my sister’s house out on the island. We had our boat hauled and taken to a place that we feel pretty sure about fixing it correctly. Had my writers group over last Sunday. My son is coming on Wednesday night, so I’ve been making lists of stuff he will want to eat and cleaning boat stuff out of my guest room.  Add to these things that I have not been feeling well for the last few days.  I get this thing called “leaky stomach” that is related to the RA.  It’s not debilitating, usually, but I just don’t feel myself, and I get really tired.

When we went to my sisters we went down to the beach. One of the access points was closed and full of dump trucks and payloaders. I assume they were cleaning up devastation from the red tide. We went to the other one and walked to the water. While the color of the water is much better, and returning to the turquoise we are used to, the beach was positively littered with dead fish. Mostly they were 8” and under, but there were a few that were over 2 feet, and dead birds and rays. However, they’d been there for awhile, because they were mostly decayed and not really smelling bad, which surprised me. Mostly stuck in the seaweed that lays on the tideline. They obviously died offshore and rolled in with the tide, and became food for the seagulls.

While the red tide seems to be slightly improving there, it has reached up to the beaches here in the way of Tropical Storm Gordon a couple weeks ago. Large numbers of dead fish are floating in the bay that my town and marina are on. We took a walk in a nature preserve on the water yesterday on the other end of town, but still on the bay, and saw a lot of fish jumping so the tide has not yet filled the whole bay. Some of the beaches have been inundated with dead fish but the towns are doing a pretty good job of keeping up with it and getting the fish into the landfills. I’m hoping against hope that my son will be able to go in the ocean here by the end of the week.

Anyway, now I have to go mow the lawn, and then shower, and clean up my kitchen. A couple friends are coming over this afternoon, and then I’m headed to Dan’s for a couple days to check on things there. Most likely I will continue to only be here sporadically. Too much real life to be living lately, not enough time to write. I’m sure the cycle will come around.

Til then, love and light to all.