Crates and Barrels

 Saturday morning and a roiling sea again

White flecks flew past me - I thought they were birds at first but they turned out to be flecks of foam. The ocean's edge resembled a giant bubble bath. A very cold bubble bath.  There was a practical sandstorm blowing, stinging the backs of my legs.

And look what had blown onto the beach. Florida rule no 1456: secure your dustbin.

This proved to be more interesting. A crate, blown, not from someone's house but much more mysteriously..

from the darkest depths of Davy Jones' locker, encrusted with the trinkets of the deep. What a tale it could tell.

 By the airport, palm trees tossed their locks in the wind.

Some lost in the process

Further on, another souvenir. Glad I wasn't under that one.

The Likely Swamp suddenly looked much wider

In the afternoon, things were quieter

 Though the trees in town were still being mightily blown

Now, I have to say, it is actually cold. Near-frosty cold. But not as bad, of course as it is up north. Thank you everyone who's sent emails from England hoping we're not buried in a snowdrift. But funnily enough, even western New Yorkers have escaped the worst of the snow. They don't like to be linked with New York City. No fear.

A Different Kind of Sunset

Not from the beach this time but from our back garden, which Americans, of course, call a back yard.  Which always makes me think of either a scrap metal dealers or a prison.

Ours is a very pretty back garden and the sunset was pretty too.

Wild, Wild Weather

On Saturday night all hell broke loose  - thunder, lightning, rain pounding against the walls and windows. The power went out for half the night. The next day, every warning under the sun was out - riptides, high waves, high winds, red algae, you name it. We took a look at our beach, where the waves, with a little stretch of the imagination, were well on the way to resembling Niagara Falls...

But that was nothing compared to the top of the island, where the jetty had been closed, presumably for safety reasons but that didn't stop a long slow crocodile of cars nosing up there to see what was going on. What was going on was pretty spectacular

With spray splashing wildly up over the rocks

 And believe it or not, there, in their wet suits, were a bunch of intrepid (or crazy) surfers

 Battling the California-style waves

 They were in there somewhere..

Phew, there he goes..

 Meanwhile I wonder if their parents knew what these kids were up to...

But we were lucky. The worst damage in our neighbourhood seemed to be downed palm fronds in their dozens, although we did find an unidentified piece of someone's roof in our back garden.  In nearby Sarasota, things were much worse. A tornado just missed a church, another destroyed a house on swanky Siesta Key and tragically, two people were killed when the winds hit a trailer. Not quite a hurricane but bad enough.

When I Grow Up .....

Oooh Mum, I mean Mom, can I have a mailbox too?

More mailboxing coming up shortly.....

Golden Beach Scenes

I never tire of walking past what I call this likely-looking swamp, just around the corner. I haven't seen any interesting fauna in it yet but who knows? It is so very Florida.

 Meanwhile, late afternoon on the beach and someone's out casing the joint.

 

 He doesn't mind getting his feet wet. Since the beach was   "renourished" (an unappetising word), there seem to be fewer shells and I would assume fewer delicacies. The shark's tooth prospectors with their long rakes have disappeared too.

 Uh-oh, someone forgot to tell them this isn't the dog beach. They'd better scarper before the local vigilantes rev up their zimmer frames.

Always there and always changing, the silver pre-sunset light on the water.

 There were some decent-sized waves too and I'm told, a few red flag warnings out. People were swimming on New Year's Day but it's got colder. More like real Florida January weather with some north winds thrown in.

 There are sea birds and land birds and we are the land birds.

So to speak. View's good, though.

Clouds and Breakers

We came to glorious weather which wouldn't last  - New Year's Day swimming off the beach - bigger now they've brought in more sand.  The cloud formations ...

were awe-inspiring

The next day, dawn over Golden Beach, as lovely as ever. Just a couple of fishermen, intrepid walkers

and seabirds.

There's nothing like it. My favourite time of day, especially as it's now snowing in western New York.

Coming Up

.. shortly

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