Marathon – Portuguese Man-O-War

Portuguease Man-O-War off the back of the boat

I  was getting ready for my morning run when the heavens opened up with rain, wind and lightening. With that introduction to the day, I went back to bed. The front had come through around midnight with a gust of wind and rain but it wasn’t done by morning evidently. One thing about being on a boat is that you’re very aware of the weather, you are a participant, not a spectator. You’re constantly looking at the sky, weather reports, wind predictions and paying attention to all signals on the weather. So today was not such a great day. However, we were not able to get any sympathy from our son’s family in Connecticut! They were expecting their 7th storm of the season with 6 to 12 inches of new snow to fall along with an assortment of rain, sleet and freezing rain. We thought temps in the 60’s were a little chilly, again – no sympathy, go figure!

Close up of the main body

While dodging storms, we saw a translucent object go floating by. Upon closer inspection it turned out to be a Portuguese Man-O-War! The tentacles stretched out for at least two feet, maybe further. You don’t want to run into one of these while swimming! He was just drifting with the tide and winds as we photographed him. Matthew has been swimming off the back of the boat to cool off in the heat but we’ll be a little more careful in the future in looking up current and up wind as to what may be coming.

I refilled the dinghy gas tank today and once again found that many if not most of the gas pumps for marine use in Florida come without the 10% ethanol addition that you find with fuel for cars. I hadn’t realize that it’s legal to do that but it’s all over Florida. Thursday is predicted to be sunny but cooler, I guess it’s part of the northern cold front with temps only in the upper 60’s, but we’ll manage.