Boating - Seashells by Millhill

Found a Big Horse Conch to Take Home

Yesterday, while walking the low tide sands around Three Sisters Islands, I came across a big seashell that was empty! I saw a lot of nice crown conchs, small pear whelks, and a nice big sharks eye shell, but all were occupied by hermit crabs. Until I saw the horse conch, all I had collected were bivalves, which were filled with sand, and not living creatures.

I found a giant Atlantic cockle which is joined, so I have two perfect, connected halves, and a pretty flat white shell which I believe is a dosinia.

We piled into the Gheenoe – three of us – which was a tight fit, and headed out in the heat to do some fishing and island hopping. Being the middle of the week, we had the river pretty much to ourselves. Since the tide was just beginning to come in, there was plenty of exposed sand to explore.

The only types of shells that are abundant are the clumps of oysters which are the bane of boaters. So finding some collectable shells means searching. It was a 95 degree day (actually cooler than what we’ve been having), and even the water was hot – yes, like a hot tub – but I shuffled around the edges of the island in search of something good that was close enough to see and reach. Continue reading “Found a Big Horse Conch to Take Home”

Get Out On The Water in a Gheenoe

Sport fishing is a favorite pastime in Florida and the fish are plentiful. Fishing from shore is easy enough, but getting out on the water means spending money (lots of money) on a boat. Or does it?

When I was in Florida this past summer my son’s friend had come by to go fishing at our rental house on the ICW. He works at Boston Whaler in Edgewater, and the boys got to talking about boats. My son doesn’t have a bunch of money, but would love to have an affordable boat to get out to the little islands all up and down the coast and do some fishing. His friend mentioned a Gheenoe, saying it was a “glorified canoe”. It’s small and affordable with a motor and a good setup wouldn’t cost much more than $5,000 – with the motor and all. They are made right in Titusville, Florida.

It sounded perfect for what my son wanted to do. During the summer, my son looked into it more and visited a place in Maitland which sells the Gheenoe. He ended up with one and loves it. It’s like a canoe, but with a motor, and options to make additions, like comfy seats, lights, etc., and he says it handles big waves very well. He’s come across some fast moving yachts in areas of the ICW which have caused giant swells for him to navigate, and he’s done so without a problem. He even caught his first Redfish not too long ago.

The Poor Man’s (Woman’s) Boat

Wouldn’t we all love to have a big beautiful boat – tied to the long dock in front of our lake front home, river or waterway? Well, I sure would. We owned a pontoon for a few years and going out on that was most wonderful. Of course we had to tow it for a half hour to the water (our house was inland) but stepping onto that boat and pushing off from shore was a magical feeling of leaving the world behind.

My son lives in Florida and goes fishing every chance he gets, which is more than most people with full time jobs because he is a firefighter. With quite a bit of time off between shifts, he usually heads to the beach to do some surf fishing. But his love for fishing came from our times out on the pontoon.

He can’t afford a motor boat but a kayak would be a perfect alternative for what he wants to do. Get off the shore and into the water. We always fished in the Itracoastal Waterway (ICW) and although it can be wide in areas, there are many little islands creating shallow places to paddle a kayak. We took the pontoon into some very shallow areas too, but being a large boat it was difficult to navigate. A kayak could be dragged across sandy areas to read otherwise unreachable bodies of water.

Load up the fishing poles and head out. I think he has a goal.