Just before I went in for surgery we had friends come and visit.  They were both from South Africa and they had stayed with us the previous year as well.  It was a short 4 day visit but I was glad that it worked out to happen prior to surgery so that we could get out and do things.

On the Saturday Michael had suggested that he would like to see Alligator.  We have the perfect spot for that so Richard suggested that we go on the Sunday for a kayak through the Loxahatchee National Park.  We are almost guaranteed to see gators.  The night before Beverly and I went up to photograph the sunset at the same place and she got the opportunity to see a gator in the water.

However, no such luck for Michael.  We have had a lot of rain so the water levels were very high and there was no place along the edge of the river for the gator to hang out and suntan.  Ironically we did not see any in the water either.

However, it was a fun kayak.  Although it was overcast, I really got sunburned on my legs which left me peeling just in time for surgery.  Not fun.

I had taken my old Canon Rebel on the kayak with me.  I can live with it if that one falls in the water – I cannot live with it if the Canon 6D falls in the water.  However, there is some issue going on with the Rebel and it’s auto focus.  So these images, were taken in manual using fully manual settings while on a moving kayak.   Telling Richard to stop every 5 seconds was not going to work 🙂

So here are some of the images from the kayak trip that we did.

Starting out on the kayak trail.

Beverly and Michael had to get the rhythm of the oars before they started moving too far.

Reflections of a beautiful day out on the water.

Water Lily’s in abundance.

Crossing paths with folk who had the same idea as us.

Typical scenes from the kayak.

A beautiful Halloween Pennant Dragonfly.  There were so many dragon fly out that day.

I loved seeing the Water Lily flowers.

Water levels were high.  Typically you can see the posts of the notice board.  The water is about half way up.

Water Lily in it’s simplicity.

Apple Snail Eggs.  The snails lay there eggs in clusters.  We once had a snail lay it’s eggs on our back dock and it was a very interesting process to watch.  Each egg is pushed out in a layer of slime towards the cluster.  I guess the slime fixes it to the rest of them.  The Limpkins love to eat the snails when they hatch, as do the Snail Kites.  Both are found out in the Loxahatchee National Park.

Little Blue Heron – another beautiful bird found in the South Florida area.

Beverly and Michael have the rhythm going now and we are moving along.

Grasses along the edge of the water.

A Turkey Vulture is a common sight in South Florida.  A vulture is something I did not think I would see moving to the USA but I see a lot of Turkey Vulture and Black Vulture in the area.

Up close on a Water Lily

Beverly and Michael – you will note that they switched positions at a dock we saw along the way.  She was far braver than I would have been.  You would not catch me trying to get out of a kayak on the water to change positions.  I know exactly where I would land.

Bubbles forming in the water behind the kayak

Bubbles on the water

The end is in sight.

Michael is relieved.  This turned out to be a 3 hour trip and I think they were both glad to be out of the kayak and back on dry land.  They worked muscles that they have not used in a while.

Thank you for joining me for this month’s Tell me a Story.    This is a circle blog.  Please take time to visit my fellow blogger LUPJi Photography | North Virginia Event and Wildlife Photographer and see what he has for you this month. Keep following the circle to see what the other photographers have shared this month. Don’t forget to leave a little love on their pages.

You can also find me on Facebook, Flickr, Instagram, Google+ and Viewbug.

This is kind of an emotional blog this month.  As you know from last month we headed off to Key West just prior to surgery.  Surgery happened and since then I have been home on bed rest for the past month and still have another month minimum to go.

In the midst of all of that Hurricane Season kicked off with a major destruction of Houston and Beaumont, Texas and various areas around it.  I was glued to my TV and Cellphone as my Finance Officer has family living in Beaumont and I have some photography friends living in the area as well.

Move forward 2 weeks and we have Hurricane Irma forming in the seas, heading over the islands and heading to the east coast. As a Cat 5!! Yikes!! So Sunday I tell Richard to head out to Publix and get water and a list of things.  I also suggest that he fills my car with gas and certainly keep his topped up.  So my wonderful husband comes home with 1 case of water and 2 jugs, and I am thinking “what!!”  I politely ask him if that is for him or for me.  Water does not last in our house and so 1 case will be finished pretty quickly if we have no water.  Okay, Okay, I cannot do a thing about it as I cannot drive and am pretty much stuck to the bed.

Each night he comes home and slowly starts putting up the shutters, grumbling along the way that he is too old to be climbing to the second story of a house and do I know that there are 78 panels of steel that have to be put up, along with all the tracks in the flooring to bolt the shutters in.  No I didn’t but I will humbly submit that this man worked like a Trojan and I am so appreciative of that. By Friday most of the shutters were up.  We had decided that we were going to stay home and ride out the storm.

On Thursday, the storm starts showing signs shifting west.  So now we have gone from the edge of the storm, to directly in it’s eye.  Not happy here, we have done the eye wall before it is not fun.  So the screening gets tied down on all edges.  The fences get secured on our side and the neighbors side ( we lost both the screening and fences in the last hurricane – Wilma 2005).  All the while Irma is rolling through the Caribbean Islands battering every aspect of the residents lives.  Around Cuba the cone changes yet again and the storm now shifts to the west coast.  We are out of the eye but now we sit on the dirty side of the storm.  That means wind, rain and, oh yes my favorite, tornado.  I freak out about tornado.  That is more scary to me than a hurricane.

Friday I spent as much time as I could (using my office chairs upstairs and my wheelchair downstairs) going from window to window stuffing towels in the window area to stop any water coming in.  Fortunately the shutters prevented that but the one window that we did not have shuttered allowed a lot of water in.  Oh yes, I did not mention we have a set of windows in the upstairs bathroom that does not have shutters, it is too high to reach.

For the first time I also created a safe room in our downstairs bathroom.  That is the only room that does not have external walls. Here were my priorities, camera and lens, back up drives, computer, cell phone, ipad, 3 days change of clothes, 3 days of basic food, and the one case of water that Richard bought, along with Simba.  His crate was in the laundry in case I needed to crate him.  Now you are probably thinking I am freaked out by now.  Ironically not so.  I was calm.  Rich and I chatted about this and there were a number of factors.  One I could not do anything, so it kept me out of the mass hysteria at the grocery store and the gas lines, and two, we do have not kids in the house anymore. So we were at peace.  It will be what it will be and we are going to ride it out.

Hurricane Irma shifted more west and then it went right over the Florida Keys, decimating and devastating so many lives.  As the storm rolled in we “battened down the hatches” and rode it out.  The constant tornado warnings were stressful but overall we had dodged a bullet.  But it was with intense sadness that we have watched the news and seen the devastation in the Florida Keys.  Key West was flooded and homes, boats, trailer homes, and businesses on the various islands have been destroyed.  In many cases there are no homes to go back to.  My heart is burdened for not only the people of the Florida Keys, but to those on the Caribbean Islands and to all those folks who have incurred damage in the path of Hurricane Irma’s travels.  The images I have seen coming out of the Florida Keys is overwhelming and I cannot begin to image how someone begins to clean up their home when there is a boat in their living room.

So my blog today is just a reflection on Key West prior to Hurricane Irma and her relentless path of destruction.

Exploring Key West – I love Key West for it’s laid back, easy going shorts, tee-shirts and flip flops kind of feeling.  There is always an excitement in the area and as the weekend approached things got kind of hectic on the streets.  We were doing our 30 minute walk about on a Friday morning.

Fishing boats were out in the ocean

A lady was selling decorative umbrella’s on the street corner.

A cruise ship was docked in the harbor.  These boats are huge and I felt so insignificant next to it.

Along the waterfront – this is Key West.

Jet ski’s are out in the playground of the ocean

90 Miles to Cuba

A common sight in Key West. I hope they survived the storm surge.

Key West Aquarium – we overlooked some of the display area and I could see a sting ray swimming around.  Not sure how much more there is to the aquarium .

Impromtu photo of a man pushing a piano up the main street in Key West.

Interesting characters of Key West – Key West is famous for their Hemingway cats which I believe have 6 toes instead of 5.

Live music out on the streets and there is nothing nicer than listening to kettle drums.

A resident of Key West hanging out enjoying the flow of visitors and engaging with a few of them.

Iconic Key West – outside the Art Museum

A familiar sight in Key West – Party time!

Time for happy hour or rather our lunch break, beers and calamari.

These are the scenes you will find as a norm in Key West.  I hope that Key West will be up and running again as quickly as possible and have not sustained excessive damage.  I read that the hotel we stayed in had sustained minimal damage and the cruise group that we used said their boats had survived the storm and that they were doing clean up of their areas.

Clean up in the Florida Keys is going to take a long time.  Clean up in the islands is going to take a long time.  Folks are hurting.  Hearts are broken.  Lives are devastated.  If you are able to please consider donating to a well established organization where the majority of the funds received go to the restoration of the area.  There is huge needs all over.  I am extremely grateful that we survived, and I pray that the people who have been so seriously affected by this storm will in time find rest and peace and begin to start their lives again.

In the meantime, as the days move forward we now keep an eye on Tropical Storm Maria who appears to be gaining strength and could well become a hurricane, and Tropical Storm Lee.

Thank you for joining me for this month’s 30 Minutes in Life.  Please take time to visit my friend and fellow blogger Sonia of Sonia Epple Fotografie and see what she has for you this month.   Keep following the circle to see what the other photographers, from the US and around the world,  have shared this month. Don’t forget to leave a little love on their pages.  To see more of Sonia’s work you can go to her Facebook page to check it out.

You can also find me on Facebook, Flickr, Instagram, Viewbug and Google+

The theme {Reflections} has been chosen by by Elizabeth of It’s Still Life Photography by Elizabeth Wilson.  By the time this goes live I will be bed bound for over 3 weeks, almost half way through my confinement.  Foot surgery is not fun and moving past the two months the recovery is really slow. Add the fact that surgery is being done on both feet and it is even more complicated.

So my {Reflections} – is in part on the things that I am missing out on.  I love to get outside and walk, or rather meander and this is not something I will be able to do for at least 6 months.  The other side of this is reflections I have taken either recently in preparation for this upcoming reality of not being able to get out and take photographs.

Recently I was at the Butterfly World and this is the complex across the lake.  We had a down pour of rain and then the sun came out and the reflection was perfect.

We were up in Seattle and had just walked through Chinatown and were on our way back to the hotel when we spotted this shop Tango Zulu.  It was no co-incidence that two South Africans were looking in the window and I was taking the picture.  In fact both my sister-in-law and I both grew up int the “Zulu” nation of Natal.

Thursday evening is my typical night to go up to the Loxahatchee National Park to photography the sunset.  I always love the reflections that I see in the water.  I am certainly going to miss going up there.

A visit to Viscaya Museum and Gardens, the historic home of James Deering, nestled on the edge of Biscayne Bay.  This is one of the most interesting homes that I have ever visited and I have been three times.  If you ever get the chance to visit I encourage you to do so.

This past weekend we took a overnight trip to Key West.  We stayed at the Simonton Guest house and we had our own private little pool which we made use of.  The next morning when we were leaving I noticed the reflection in the water and could not resist taking it.

I am back at the Loxahatchee National Park and this is one of my favorite spots to visit prior to the sunset and sometimes after it as well.  The reflections are gorgeous and at times the light is just amazing.

Thank you for joining me for this month’s Share Six.  This is a circle blog.  From the sneak peak images I have seen, you are going to want to follow the circle.  Please take time to visit my friend Katherine of Cobert Photography and see what she has for you this month. Keep following the circle to see what the other photographers have shared this month.  Don’t forget to leave a little love on their page as well.

You can also find me on Facebook, Flickr, Instagram, Google+ and Viewbug.

Now it is your turn. Don’t forget to like us on Facebook at Share Six and come and share your images on the theme Reflections throughout the month of September.  A new theme will come out on October 6.

Remember you can follow us on Instagram at @sharesix  and tag your images #sharesix_reflections.

You can also find the Share Six webpage at http://www.sharesix.wordpress.com

We look forward to seeing your images on the theme Reflections