[hello from the Turks and Caicos]

I am pretty sure we lost several butterfly jigs to YFT last year. They were grabbing them on the way down and then diving straight for the bottom.

[Hey]

but not hitting on all 8 cylinders..

[hello from the Turks and Caicos]

Glad to see the dog is still sane after two hurricanes.

I don't know if 'sane' is exactly the right word. He definitely has an attitude, and thinks we are basically just dog-food dispensing machines that he can also use to row him around, or take him fishing.

[hello from the Turks and Caicos]

I am guessing you would not have as much control in a keel-less kayak, due to slippage. But still, the ability to head SOMEwhere specific downwind within that cone would be better than nothing. Save a lot of paddling too.

[hello from the Turks and Caicos]

assuming its windy. ive spent a few very uncomfortable days in big glassy seas on sailboats with no engines just drifting along. up down up down.

it is a pretty novel and creative idea however. as long as you want to go down wind....im thinkin the contender isnt going to want to reach let alone run into the wind. a kicker might be a better solution.

Well, it's windy here. Always. Except for maybe five or six days a year. We have actually done a little experimenting, and have discovered a surprising amount of "rudder" authority using the outboard to steer. The kites are steerable to some degree. Yeah,would never go upwind, but the difference between being able to steer +/-45 deg off the wind and getting blown straight downwind is substantial.

I have mixed feelings about kickers. Yeah, they are handy to have, but also a pain. If you don't use them often enough, they run into the same issues that motors exposed to elements experience after long periods of idleness. Do you go with an electric start, or hope you can pull start it ? What if the problem with your main engine is fuel related? Do you carry a seperate supply for the kicker? That has some complications, with lugging gasoline around, keeping it fresh, etc. Kickers are thief magnets, too. Easy to grab, so you have the whole security thing. They get in the way when fishing sometimes. And they are not cheap, and neither are the brackets. And I don't like drilling holes in boats, much.

I am thinking that a kite, with the needed rigging all pre-determined, and rolled up in a piece of PVC and stored onboard might be better than nothing. The visibility of the kite at sea would almost guarantee that someone could find you if they got within say, five miles.

I have talked to some kite people, and a couple hundred pounds of pull is not out of the question with a kite. I have a mental image of using the center cleats and some pulleys to attach and steer. It's just an idea, so far. I want to play around with it.

[hello from the Turks and Caicos]

ive only done it a few times but it is a lot of fun. you have the right boat and the right water. now snowboarding....33 years. yikes im old!!

I have been trying to encourage them to seriously look at kiteboarding, but it's for a selfish reason. I have this idea that a properly setup kite could be used as emergency propulsion for a boat.

[hello from the Turks and Caicos]

I cant remember if you said or not, but are any of your kids into water skiing, wake boarding or that sort of stuff? This water just makes me think of that WOW.

No, not yet. The youngest one dabbled in kite boarding for a bit. It's probably up to us to get some wake boards down here. I have been thinking of a big tow-behind inflatable, too. It's a mob scene when an appreciable number of them visit.

[hello from the Turks and Caicos]

Rainy day breaking up at the local bonefish flats:

[hello from the Turks and Caicos]

It's not all clear blue water every day here, of course. But we have been getting some nice sunrises from time to time.

This is the local marine patrol boat coming back in shortly after dawn:

They leave just before sunset each night and patrol the water between here and French Cay to try to intercept the Haitian sloops trying to sneak into the country.

Here's another image from a 'gray scale' kinda day. Those squalls are just about exactly where we are planning to go after we get around that little cay in front of us:

Yeah, being in a small boat with the hatches ripped off and no bilge pump... I think we will steer around that one:

[hello from the Turks and Caicos]

Thanks. This one was bigger, but uncooperative. Also we hadda grab the dog right after this, he was ready to go overboard to bite this one. didn't get time to try to line it up for a good photo.

We hooked into something on a skirted cedar plug that broke 65# test braided wire, which was on 80# powerpro. We didn't see it, but it bent the rod double. I am guessing a big wahoo, but will never know.

We caught six or seven barracuda before we gave up and moved on. Still, they are fun to catch, and there are worse ways to spend a day in mid-Feb.

[hello from the Turks and Caicos]

some pretty water here. This is off West Caicos about a month ago.

Yeah, that's not the panga.

A Haitian sloop, made it this far, but I am pretty sure this is the end of the road for it. Still 12 miles shy of where they wanted to go:

He doesn't like cuda any more than we do. Thing is, he wants to bite them. We don't.

and last week, barking orders to the crew kayaking on a canal:

[hello from the Turks and Caicos]

Please don't start this here.

Hey, found a neat feature here:

Planning to do my part to keep this a nice boating forum, whether Wiley enforces his guidelines or not.

But I would suggest that someone who wants his very first post here to be basically confrontational profanity go start his own introductory thread, rather than childishly try to sabotage others who are actually trying to contribute something positive.

[hello from the Turks and Caicos]

Re post #26.

Thought I smelled somethin' strong!

Eeeeeeeeeeeewwwwwwwww.

Must be terrible. Perhaps mouthwash would help you minimize the smell.

Nothing out there for your complete lack of class,though.

[what would you buy?]

The badword filter had a ton of words I wouldn't have filtered. "Shag" was one of them.

I'll look it over and delete some.

Thats pretty funny. No way to describe shagbark hicory, huh? And Rednecque is not a derogatory word where I come from.

[hello from the Turks and Caicos]

Whoa, those are too big. Looks like I need to play with the settings a bit. havent gotten the hang of posting photos on this forum yet...

[hello from the Turks and Caicos]

No one can forget Gringo. He brought the T and Cs into our living rooms with great outstanding excellent fotos. Hope all is well and everything is working out for you.

What a nice thing to say. Thank you.

Glad you liked the photos. We keep taking them. We just moved 10,000 of them from my little laptop to DVD's. They add up quick, especially when we keep busting cameras, and then buying new ones, and each new camera has more megapix and each photo takes up more and more room.

Maybe I just need a bigger computer.

Lately we have been playing a lot with a kayak we just bought for knee exercise. Now when the wind is blowing hard offshore ( happens a lot this time of year) we grab the little kayak and go explore someplace in the lee.

Here are some photos from last week, a typical sunrise type picture

and a late afternoon, winter sun photo while cruising around one of the canals..

and a sunset (bet you never would have figured that out...duh...)

[all those who have been banished]

somewhere somehow somebody must have kicked you around some.

[Where's Dave??]

Dave? Dave's not here.

[hello from the Turks and Caicos]

I see we have other "friends" here too........

Yep, a lot of familiar "faces" around here.

[hello from the Turks and Caicos]

Good to have you back Gringo.......... :

Well,thanks, but technically we never left this forum either voluntarily or not, so we are not 'back'... we are just newbies here like the rest of you. So far.

[Caption This]

Caption this photo:

Imagine the surprise when Ludicrous finally dropped anchor in a secluded location and seeing no witnesses, pulled the self-inflation lanyard on what he had thought was a pneumatic vinyl blonde in a box promising weekends of fun and excitement...

[Less Bashing - - - Take the Higher Road]

I'm with you. No politics...No bashing, that simple

Me too. I would like to see Politics and Religion topics totally banned here. That would cut out about 90% of it. Besides, for those people who just cannot control themselves in spouting their opinion on the Presidents latest blurb, there is Freebird's site. Knock down drag out political and religious free for all's are not totally unheard of.

Opinions on outboards, the best kind of glue, trim tabs, fishing techniques...that kind of boaty thing...sure. Everybody knows those are opinions, and usually someone is asking for opinions.

[all those who have been banished]

Was that quote by Barney Rubble?

[hello from the Turks and Caicos]

From what I have seen, the 'paranoia' driven sites tend to stagnate pretty quickly. The forum and blog people who realize that they do not have a captive audience, and who also realize that they can establish working relationships with other sites seem to do better.

Computer literate people are the rule these days. People will hop around looking at different sites, and settle on what works best for their particular interests. Fishing, boating, sailing, diving.....there are many of us with interests in all these areas who will continue to visit a number of sites. A good forum will take care of itself. Trying to act like an internet dictator with "forum immigration" control will never work. People still vote with their feet.

[Post your Sunrise /Sunset pics]

Sunrise and sunset photos? Oh my god I wouldn't know where to start. We have hundreds.

But looking at pages of thumbnails, this caught my eye. The road along Juba Salina at sunset. Good bonefishing there, by the way.