Key Largo

Yesterday we got to the motel in the early afternoon.  Biked a little and lounged on the beach.  Watched the pelicans dive-bombing for fish.  A little road-weary, but we had a good dinner at a  funky Keys-y place, a big board shack on the bay, the Island Grill.  The plan is for Gay to get up about eight and we trundle on down, scouting for breakfast along the way.  Looks like good weather; in fact, the forecast is good until Saturday. 

Partly cloudy nights, they predict, which will affect me less than more serious astronomers, since I'm just sight-seeing, and can move the telescope to something else if a cloud gets in the way.

I'm really excited about the prospect of using my huge (25X100) binoculars, which haven't yet been unleashed on a truly dark sky.  The main instrument, a 9.25" Cassegrain-Maksutov, has had some pretty good seeing, in campgrounds outside of town, but nothing as good as WSP (Winter Star Party) will have.  Touch wood.  The forecast is good, though, and the radar this morning is spotless throughout the Gulf and well out into the Atlantic.

Right now the sun is coming up into light morning clouds, normal for the Keys.  Gulls creaking and doves dove-ing.  Below me fishermen are staggering with cups of coffee and hangovers; no early-morning customers.  (We're overlooking a little marina with some modest deep-sea rentals.)  Yesterday they were cleaning the day's catch as we took an afternoon stroll; a pretty good haul of sea trout, amberjack, and one big bonito.

  

This is the Pelican Cove Resort & Marina in Key Largo, and I'd recommend it.   Nice big room with kitchenette for $250 a night, and others down to $169, not expensive for the Keys ("high season" started yesterday).  The name is appropriate, since the hotel is on a cove where the pelicans come to divebomb for fish all afternoon.  They're entertaining.  Cruise in elegant circles with one eye cocked, looking for careless fish, and when they see one they tuck into a streamlined headlong dropping weight.   They slam into the water and then gobble up the stunned fish.

The place has a nice white-sand beach with a bar and girls with bikinis.  Birds to go with the birds, so to speak.  If you like that sort of thing, as I say, it comes with the Joe Haldeman Eyeball of Approval.

Joe