Swimming with a Manatee!

No, the pic above is a Sea Robinfish but first - Martin swam with a manatee out in the wild - how freakin' cool is that??? Yesterday we went diving with Dan & Sandra. It's been windy and the ocean is too high to go out so we all stayed at the bridge. Martin & Dan were free diving and Sandra and I were scuba diving. Martin & Dan meet up with 10 ft manatee that hung out with them for about 5 minutes. Amazing! They also found themselves swimming with a school of 6 eagle rays! Sandra and I missed the big critters but did find a Sea Robinfish (pic above). It's the creepiest thing ever! It has these appendages like front feet that they can move like fingers to turn over rocks and find food yet it's a fish. Yikes! I'm really amazed at the bridge area. It's just a sandy, kind of ugly space under water and you would never guess that such amazing and rare animals live there.

We also went to the Leonard Cohen concert last Saturday. Wow. It was an amazing, professional, classy show. I just can't believe that he is 75 yrs old. He has so much energy, vitality and wit, it shines through on stage. His fellow musicians and singers are incredibly talented. He sang and also read some of his songs as poems. I was laughing one minute and moved to tears the next. The show was 3 hours long of performance (and a 20 minute or so break in the middle). Even Martin (who was rather dubious about the show) had a great time. Absolutely wonderful!

On Sunday we went to Naples and visited Sue & Armando. It was a great day spent with great people :) We checked out a new English Pub that Martin gave the thumbs up to. We then watched a very strange-yet-funny movie, Burn After Reading. We had a nice afternoon catching up and getting kitty love from Tru & Blu. We finished off the day with stone crab claws for dinner (the season just opened). I'm going to miss Sue & Armando sooo much. I'm so thankful we've had the opportunity to be so close by and to see them.

Yes, I'm starting to really feel that the end of this magical year is approaching. I just can't believe how fast 10 months has gone by. We leave in just about a week for Curacao for November, then a few weeks more and we'll be home. I even have a return date for work, January 11th! Ooh, that's going to be a rough adjustment :) (Don't worry Judy, I'll get back in the flow quick ;) Okay, no more thinking like this or I get all freaky and sentimental.

So for the rest of our time in Ft. Lauderdale, we have more diving planned, the huge Fort Lauderale Boat Show next Thursday, and at least one more sea trial with Lucky (tomorrow). Oh, and we signed up for a Disco Dive in Curacao. It involves disco clothes and doing the hustle - at depth - can you say, excited???