more from the dinner.....

more from the night. Sorry if I missed anyone. There was a jar of strange liquid moving about the room........and some guy named Captain Morgan kept following me around......

more
 

final pics

Damn Eric!!! Some really nice pictures.....outstanding job even with some rather tough and rough subjects to photograph!!! :)

Very nice photos indeed! Mel and I sure did enjoy this gathering. I got to go offshore and kill fish and Mel got drive the boat and sleep in late. Good times to be followed by where we will all strike next. From some alcohol inspired chatter it sounds like we may be heading for the Sportmans Lodge in Sebastian for the next run.

Thank you all for such great hospitality. I only wish I had more time then just Saturday evening.

So the Restless Lady made it safe and sound to her new fresh water home. Could anyone have imagined seeing her at the top of the Appalachians?

GFS - Homosassa Retreat Report
 

Sandy, This was a bad one for you to miss, Bro. I thought about having you shrink wrap the Welly and Fed-Ex'in it to MacRae's, but I fingered you was busy trimming trees and fixin yur roof.
We all had dinner at The Freezer on Friday night after Kmoose, Dougie and I sneaked out and rounded up 15 hogfish for Saturday night. We ended up with one 24' table where everybody fit except Kmoose, where he perched above us, on the deck like "security", to make sure nobody got outa' line.
Saturday, Dave, Kmoose and Eric went north and I led a squadron half way down to Anclote Key in search of scallops. At the end of the day the whole bunch of the ones with me didn't get enough to cover the white on the bottom of a five gallon bucket. So much for my scallop prowess! Thankfully, enough didn't follow me and we ended up with enough to sauté for dinner, thanks to the northbound group.
In the afternoon Eric B shows up with armfuls of plates, utensils and Sailor Jerry Cups and Mel drags over a soft side Yetti with a 6# sack of Grouper fillets, a 7# sack of Red Snapper fillets and a third 5# sack of Cobia fillets in it. Donny and I cut everything up but kept it separated so we could compare it later. Donny fired up the burner and started cooking fish, No Bones had 20#'s of shrimp going, and Dave was getting the roux going for his jambalaya.
The shrimp must have been good, since they never made it into the Gator Den - every one was eaten by those "pelicans" hovering around the cooking station outside. Donny did his ice cream scoop hushpuppies both with and without jalapeños. Ken cooked up a batch of black beans and rice with chopped onions for some starch. He also produced homemade tarter sauce for the fish. Hogfish Ceviche' and fresh avocado dip appetizers lead the way with homemade cookies, key lime pie and Don's Apple pie capping everything off. 'Ol Double Dog Dare ya' Danny Wood even slid in there just as the dinner bell rang along with the new captain (SSPBill) of the Restless Lady.
It was crazy good.
Jimmy Campbell dragged his scepter all the way from South Carolina just to wet her gills with some salt water. Dave had his "clean machine" 25 Seafari there, Eric B had the "tricked out" Lady in Red there, along with Eric's and No Bones' "hot rod" Merc powered 20's, Donny's 23 Open fish, Casey's 20' open fish, Kmoose's "long deck" Scepter and Dougie's Seafari along with Denny's teal trimmed Seafari which after 3 hours of engineering briefing was handed over on Sunday and headed to New York, I believe. There was a total of 10 boats.
So get with BumpDraft and No Bones and get something set up in the Spring over on your side. We can't be hoarding all the fun over here, fer gosh sakes.

I`m sore and sad that I missed this one.
The lawn clipping crew was finally here and had a front end loader.
Janet said they were here for 4 hours.

Denny, I share your tears.
You have been a kind friend and I will miss our diving together.

Keep us in the loop
Cheers,
S n J

We sure did miss you Sandy and Mel was almost broken to find out she wasn't going to get her annual dose of GFS Welly. I hope all is getting cleaned up at the home front and that we get to see you soon at the next get together.

Got almost all of the roof work done. The rest will require some real finesse, so may call a
pro. Sebastian in the spring. With GFS Welly natch. Happy the folks on the west coast didn't
get that big surge.

The lawn clipping crew came Saturday, took one look and hauled ass.
Glad they came back in force.