What a great day! We got up at 8am and got ready for a great day, it was 79 degrees and blue Sky's. We left the house at 10:30 and headed to the beach. We wanted to get some sun as the cold front comes through tomorrow. It is only going to be 60 tomorrow.
 |
| The beach when we got there. By the time we left it was packed! |
We got hungry watching somebody eating, so bonnie ran down the block and got us a $5 footlong and brought it back and we ate on the beach.
 |
| Christmas in Florida! |
 |
| Man I look good!!! LOL |
 |
| I am such a romantic, I forgot the 4ever |
We stayed out there till we heard a voice on a loudspeaker, and we had been out there for 2 and a half hours anyway so we decided to investigate. We dropped of the chairs and beach bag in the car, then walked down to the bridge over the inter coastal. We heard the loudspeaker clearly now, started walking up the bridge and saw this across the inter coastal. It was a big ramp with some bike riders doing tricks.
 |
| They were pretty good...X gamers I was told |
 |
| This is the inter coastal |
We went down to the waters edge on this side of the water to watch. As we were watching we saw a guy with a camera taking pictures. I looked to see what he was photographing and We saw this huge iguana on the dock. He was around 5 feet long.
 |
| This iguana was 5 ft long. and real ugly! |
 |
| Zoom in action! |
We hung around there till 3 and decided to go home and get ready for the big boat parade later in the evening. We got home and prepared our stuff to take. We didn't know how the parking situation would be so we decided to take the van so we would have somewhere to hang out and eat and what not. The parade was supposed to be at 6:30 so we thought if we got there early we could get a good parking spot. We made sandwiches, loaded a cooler with soda and bonnie made a pot of coffee, which she put in the thermos. We also put some long pants and sweatshirts into a bag in case it got cool. When we left at 4:30 it was still 78 degrees and we had shorts, t-shirts and flip flops on. We got to the park and got a great spot right up front.
There were not many people there yet, but there were some people doing an interview with a guy on a bike. I asked some people what it was about they said he was some famous trick bike guy, X Games..Yada Yada Yada.
 |
| Some trick bike rider getting interviewed |
We set up our chairs and just hung out chatting.
 |
| Waiting for the boats |
It got to be 6:30 and more people showed up but no boats! Then the clouds rolled in and it got windy. We had been chatting with some of the other folks sitting around when all of a sudden it started raining. Everybody grabbed their stuff and ran to their cars, us included. It was kinda weird, because nobody left. Everybody just sat in their cars. We had the camper so we ate dinner in the rain watching everybody sit in their cars. 7:15 it finally stopped raining and people trickled out of their cars and started milling about. We had the side door in the van open so people were walking up to me asking if the boats were coming. What?
How the hell would I know? I didn't say that though. I acted like I knew what was going on and told them they were coming/ (LOL) I figured if we had been there for 3 hours then they may as well too. Everybody hung out drinking beer and just relaxing till around 7:45. We all started to wonder what was going on when people started flooding into the lot. I asked some of the people what was happening and he told me the boats were almost there. He said they start around 7 miles south at 6:30 but it takes 1 and a half hours to get to where we were. Hey, you learn something new every day. Next year we will come a bit later. Then we heard the boat horns in the distance! Here we go!
 |
| Us in santa hats..where the heck are the boats? |
 |
| There they go..this is the only pic that was in focus |
My camera wouldn't take very good pictures because the boats were moving and to get pics at night I have the shutter open for 2 seconds. all the Pictures were blurry except the last one which I posted. so I only have video.
Sorry for so many videos, but it was really neat and I wanted to share with you guys!
i finally figured out how to post comments! i've seen a few of those Christmas boat parades while i lived there. they are really neat to see. that iguana is probably someone's pet that got away. they need heat at all times. they always have a heated rock or pad.
ReplyDeletethere were 4 iguanas, all on the same dock. They were various sized from 2 ft to that monster 5 footer. I do not think it was a pet as that dock was in the middle of the inter coastal under a bridge. It was the biggest iguana I have seen since I have been here.
ReplyDelete