Underneath the moon in Florida

We're still here at the beach and are heading out for a walk in a few minutes but since they just fixed the router here in our condo I thought I'd post a quick update.

Did you know there's such a thing as a Mole Crab? I've seen their shells often but today we finally saw a live one. It looks like a cross between a horseshoe crab and a lobster, and it's a tannish white color. Apparently some of them are bioluminescent, but it was light when we saw the one earlier so I don't know if the ones here are or not. Maybe we'll dig one up while we are walking and find out.

Also, did you know that there are octopi that live along the Gulf coast? I didn't, but one of the wives from the work group caught one today. I was about to start marching up and down the beach with a "Free the cephalopod" sign, because I was afraid they were going to hurt it, but it escaped.

A fish adopted us today and followed us around for a while. It stayed right by my shoulder for a long time, and I felt bad when we went back up on the shore. Hopefully he found someone else to keep him company.

I had forgotten how much more active the dolphins are on this part of the beach. On our vacations we stay further down the beach and only see the dolphins in the early morning and the early evening. On the island where we stay for work trips (which is where we are now) we see them all day. I sit on my bed and drink tea every morning and look out the glass doors and watch the dolphins jumping. I wish I could do that every day but we don't have too many dolphins in Rocket City, which is a shame. I've gotten a few pictures of them but no good ones yet - maybe tomorrow.

No Gypsy Moth sightings yet, though we have seen some F-15s. I've been hoping to see some Warthogs but we rarely see those here. We do sometimes see the Blue Angels, but none yet this time. We have seen lots of other interesting planes, though.

I saw some shooting stars the first night, so of course I had to make some wishes. They haven't come true yet but of course they will (isn't that a requirement of wishes made on shooting stars?) so I'll just have to be patient. I think I even saw one breaking up fairly close to us (a meteor, not a wish), though I'm not sure - all the others I've seen have been a brilliant greenish yellow, and the thing I saw the other night was a silvery blue. It was pretty, whatever it was. Hopefully we'll see more tonight.

Time to go walk. I wish I could go swim - the water is beautiful with the moon reflecting on it. The waves look like liquid silver. I don't swim in the gulf after dark anymore, though. I haven't since the unfortunate Jellyfish Across the Eyelids Incident. I only swim in the gulf when it's light enough to see the jellyfish. I don't ever want to dive into one again! Fortunately, unless it's storming, the water here is clear enough to see everything.

I'll let you know if we see any bioluminescent mole crabs!