A knock in the middle of the night

October 15, 2007....2:00 AM

Suddenly a knock on the door! Russell woke me up. My first thought was that I must be snoring. He said " someone is knocking at the door! ". He got up and asked who was there? It was George, a local fisherman. He told Russell he had been fishing in his small boat near a bridge and his boat got stuck under it. The currents are strong here and if your boat falters it can get pulled under the bridge very quickly. He was lucky to get to shore. He wanted a ride out to his houseboat to get his other boat. Russell got dressed and took him out there in our 19' angler. He wasn't gone long and I kept watch till he got home. I didn't like him being out there alone in the dark. It was windy too. All went well and we finally got back to sleep.

George and his wife Anna and thier two children live on thier houseboat out here in the cove in Manatee Bay. They fish and crab for a living. They bring the kids in every morning to get the schoolbus. The kids seem to enjoy thier life on the water.

Morning seemed to come too soon. We started out a little crabby from lack of sleep, but soon got on track with our job for the day. We are working on replacing clear vinyl on some large enclosure panels. There's a lot to it but we got a lot accomplished today. We have a small canvas shop here in Key Largo. It is just the two of us and we get enough work to keep us busy. We like working for ourselves and living in this beautiful location. We rent a space on the 2nd floor at a marina. There are large windows on 3 sides that overlook the marina and canal out to Manatee Bay. We see beautiful sunrises and sunsets, rainbows and all kinds of weather. We sometimes go out fishing in our Angler but most of our time is spent working. We enjoy it though.

Tonight Russell got his reward for last nights rescue. Anna came by with a generous bag of stone crab claws. This was the first day for getting stone crabs. They wre cooked too! We had them for dinner and they were delicious!