Hello from the TCI

[Gringo]

Not really a good screen saver, but still a good photo for the topic, "my daily snapshot":


From the deck of our new house last night.

 

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[eathabs]

Great stuff Gringo!! It's been some time since you have posted photos. Are ya on vacation? No, wait, you are on vacation full time.

Hal

 

[Gringo]

well....if you were following the blog site you would KNOW we have been moving into the new house for the past week.

Oh, and also on Saturday we fished in a local fishing tournament. Took the dolphin category.

I can just about always grab a decent sunrise, sunset, or blue water photo these days. Stuff like this:

Thats a sunrise from our new patio a couple days ago. The water tank was for the construction crew, and of course will be gone in the next day or so.

Here's just another sunset from the deck on the other side of the house:


and about an hour from now I can see what tonight's sunset looks like.

Wanna see some fish pictures?

 

[rmptr]

YES
We'd like to see fish pictures!

I'm working on another brand new house now... buyer ready to move in.
so I'm busy cuttin' open the walls, tracing the plumbing supply lines to see where the plumber crossed the lines to fix why the toilet flushes with warm water and such... Then I patch up the walls and paint, good as ever! (Well, as it should be!) I chase down electrical probs, too... I'm ready when you are in need!
rmptr

 

[Gringo]

Well, last Friday we got a call from a friend who owns and runs the Bottle Creek Lodge, which is located over on North Caicos. He had entered a local Wahoo fishing tournament Saturday, and had a couple extra spots on his boat. Each boat was allowed four anglers. So, my son was visiting from the USA, and we lept at the chance to fish in a tournament, with a charter captain.

We hooked up with four rainbow dolphin, and managed to actually get two of them on the boat. We won that category. Captain got $ 2,000. and four round trip tickets to Puerto Plata in the DR, and we got t-shirts, trophies, and a great set of memories of a day on the water. I also learned a few things about rigging ballyhoo and running spreads.

Out of 24 boats in the contest, seven of them caught fish big enough to enter the competition:

I think a lot of the problem was that the seas were running six to eight feet, and the smaller boats tended to stay closer to the island. We got out in the bad stuff. That Rainbow Dolphin in the pile is ours.
The winning wahoo, on the top of the pile, was 61 lbs.



Here's the winning team for the dolphin category:

My son is on the left, and I am that exceedingly handsome, tanned, and intelligent looking devil in the Andros t-shirt.

and last night's sunset was only mediocre. Sorry. Can't win em all. SOMEthing has to define 'average'...

 

[Gringo]

 

[rmptr]

That's a good looking young fellow Gringo...
Stocky fellow. I don't know if I could beat him arm wrestling!

Probably NOT if he's been out there catching all the fish with you.
Whew! Nice fish.
Never caught, or ate those before. I'll bet they are good!

Congrats on the nice lookin' trophy.
rmptr

 

[Gringo]

I wouldnt wrestle him. Not even taking into consideration his 8 years of martial arts training, he's a big kid.

Meanwhile, for you winter-bound...

07:30 March 3rd.


Can spring be far behind?

 

[Gringo]

Moving into a new, as yet unfinished house is a stressful thing. Well, not all bad, of course, but it sure has it's frustrating moments.

In the meantime, we are enjoying the view from the patio of the sun coming up in the morning as we have coffee...and plan the day..


and then after a day of unpacking, dealing with electricians, plumbers, masons, and utility people, eventually they all leave and we get a pretty good ringside seat for sunsets that just happen to coincide with coctail hour...

We have not even had a chance to try the Excaliber out again, after our one totally fruitless attempt to figure out how to make it work underwater. Soon, we hope to be out diving on the reef again. Can't wait.

 

[rmptr]

Great shot's Gringo.... I like the arch framing the pic! Nice planning...

Do you have an underwater camera for us?

rmptr

 

[Mona Lisa]

Gringo.....Thanks from Northwestern PA where the snow is just starting to melt. Your pictures are like food to my winter-weary soul.

Beautiful! Thanks again. 8)

 

[Gringo]

Gringo.....Thanks from Northwestern PA where the snow is just starting to melt. Your pictures are like food to my winter-weary soul.

Beautiful! Thanks again. 8)

Glad you like them. We have these arches built into the house design, one looks out over the ocean, the other faces the sunsets. It wasn't really intended to be a Kodak Moment kind of thing, but the house is oriented to take max advantage of the Trade Winds, and it just worked out that way. We still stop what we are doing at the end of the day to watch the sunsets, even though we moved in a couple weeks ago. It's a good official kickoff for the Sunset cocktail hour, kinda like a cosmic starting gun. Yesterday I was a few minutes late while I went back inside rummaging around for a camera, but it wasn't much more than an average sunset anyhow.

My wife's immediate family is all in the Pittsburgh area, by the way. We spend a fair amount of time there. Beautiful country, PA.

 

[rmptr]

Re: Hello to the TCI

Hey Gringo!

Life may not be all fishing, here in CA... We got dinosaurs! Mean ones!
rmptr

 

[Gringo]

Hey, that dinosaur photo is pretty funny.

Hijacking my little thread here for a moment...I wanted to show y'all some work by a guy I have become friends with. His name is Randall Rosenthal, and he is an artist living out on Long Island NY. He sculpts wood, and paints it. He starts with one solid slab of wood, and then carves all the details out of that one hunk. No glue, just carving. All his work is full scale.

He emailed me a photo of his latest work, titled "Lunch Money" yesterday.


Can you believe everything in that photo ( except the shadow) is carved from one slab of wood?

He did this little one for us, and it's sitting here on the desk in front of me:

("Panga" is the name of the type of hull our boat has..)

Anyhow, his work just blows me away and I thought some of you would appreciate it too. To see more of his art check out his website at:
www.randallrosenthal.com/

He's still surfing and snowboarding at 60, and he ocean fishes from a kayak. Pretty cool guy.

 

[Mona Lisa]

Mr. Rosenthal's work is truly amazing. Thanks for the link.

I think the piece that you own is one of my favorites.

 

[Gringo]

I like it, too. You can just barely see the wood grain in it, and I like that. I also like that he misspelled
"pterogymnus" and wrote a note to us on the back.

 

[rmptr]

Randy's work is amazing, Gringo!

I hope he gets every opportunity to surf, or do whatever he wants, to keep his creativity going.
It's a real gift.

rmptr

 

[Gringo]

Back on topic,
this was this morning:
Wind has picked up slightly. We had house guests until yesterday, and so have not been on the boat, gone fishing, or even gotten much done at the house. La Gringa put the remains of the Christmas Stump on the patio:





I thought it made a nice picture.

 

[Gringo]

For a change, I tried to get a moonset through the porch where I usually photo the sunsets. This was at dawn as the moon went down;

and this was the sun coming up:

 

[Gringo]

By golly, it did it again. Every morning, roughly the same time and in the same place, this big shiny thing comes up out of the ocean.


I am thinking it might be fun to see how many consecutive days of this I can string together in a row, going forward...