Meh.
Ended up being a partial beach day in that from 0600 to 1000 Gretchen was doing the Bridal Party for the 14:00 ‘On The Beach’ Wedding at Fort DeSoto.
Fun Fact:
Fort De Soto was originally proposed to be built on Egmont and Mullet keys as Gun Batteries for Coastal Defense by ‘Brevet’ Col. Bobby E. Lee in 1849. ‘Brevet’ as meaning that At-The-Time Colonel Lee was frocked from Major to Colonel to carry out this mission.
Ultimately it took until 1898 to actually get the building started.
They currently have 2 12in Model 1890 Mortars still on site, hell, still in situ in the revetments:
Tell you what, them suckers are big.
There’s also a Rapid Fire 1890 12in Rifle (i.e. cannon) on site as well. It was recovered from Fort Dade which is isolated on Egmont Key. Dade is s-l-o-w-l-y being reclaimed by nature, as there’s some turtle hatcheries (Leatherback, Loggerhead, and Green Sea Turtles and thusly endangered) as well as some rare seabird nesting areas, so currently Egmont Key is strictly verboten as far as exploring.
So, from what we heard, the Wedding went off without a hitch, and she (the Bride) kept sending thank yous and DMs to Gretchen all day long. Good for her!
Now, for us? After we got rid of everyone?
Well, it was Netflix and Chill until about 4pm or 16:00. That’s when the rain cut, and the sun sort-of-kind-of came out… it was vaguely overcast. Of course that didn’t stop the Ultraviolet. I’m again a wee bit cooked. After only 2 hours…
Thankfully the last sunburn gave me a base to run off of. And I actually got into the ocean for the first time in a few years. For a guy who’s lived in and around the Ocean his entire life, in my Old Age I’ve developed a few new rules.
The biggest?
Don’t swim where you’re lower on the food chain that the other critters in there with you.
Loosely interpreted as “Don’t swim where big toothed shit lives”
No interest in getting chewed on. And as the majority of you know, IF there’s gonna be someone that gets targeted by a fucking Shark, it’s going to be my big whytteboi ass for certain.
So, we check out tomorrow.
More Later
Big Country
I’ve been to Fort DeSoto. Since I was 0341 I found those massive mortars very interesting. Can’t imagine the headache you’d get from doing a volley with those things. Like alligators, most sharks won’t bite something bigger than they are. I’ve snorkeled and dived with both several times. I doubt we have any sharks left around here that would be bigger than you these days. But, the way your luck has been running……..
I usedta live more or less around the corner from Egmont Key/Fort DeSoto. I’m a big fan of coast artillery and the like and spent mucho tiempo out there. A girl I knew back then had an Aussie cattle dog that would herd fish in the lagoon on the inside of the key.
For my money the bestest southeastern fort assemblage is the road heading east from Savannah, first you get Fort Jackson, then Fort Pulaski (which is still all shot up), and finally Fort Screven way out on Tybee Island. It’s a cast-concrete monument from that brief pre-Wilson/post-Garfield moment when ‘Merica was still on the rise.
Congrats! Glad you had an enjoyable, relaxing, non-productive day. Gretchen may have been as busy as a one legged woman in as ass-kicking contest, but you……..? Chillin’ like a villain.
Goddamnit BCE.
The Kennedy meme made me waste perfectly good coffee and now I have to clean my phone. Again. 😅
I always wonder just how effective the Coastal Arty would have been. On our coast it was pretty much a nothing burger. Jap sub shelled an oil field, which outranged the local rapid fire battery… So no response allowed. In Oregon another Jap sub shelled the local fort; same lack of response and reasoning. Going with obsolete 12 inch vs rifled deck gun wasn’t a winner. Which begs the question of what those millions spent on fortifications and WW1 weaponry was good for. In SoCal similar situation, except the coast batteries had 16inchers and no sub was going to f…k with the big shit. However, the lack of practice would have had to show in any engagement. The local battery had One, count it One, live fire exercise. This was in the interwar period, so figure the early 30’s. The blast pressure broke windows and damaged door jams for half the town (Say, 20 city blocks) in a well-built harbor town. So that was it for actual training. Sure the well-trained gunners of the IJN would have given quarter. Makes for some cool running tracks though.
An accordion is like a mortar shell: once you hear either, it’s too late.
Hey people!!!!!
Good mood and good luck to everyone!!!!!
Two things to avoid in the saltwater – Toothy and Squishy – like ManOWar squishy that sting like crazy, a bad enough encounter will kill ya. Now lemme tell you how much I like lake Michigan – almost a sea actually and tolerable for 3 months of the year, nothing toothy or stingy in it unless you piss off a sturgeon, but those are mostly up in Superior which is NEVER warm enough to swim in.
Cheers – go so you and the Mrs. can recover bubba.