With only one day off each week, you try and use those 24 hours to their fullest extent. With the weather being about as perfect as you could ask for right now, our days off are usually spent on our boat, or on the water on a friends boat.

Most of our friends have normal jobs that require them to work that awful 9-5 schedule. Since Cindy and I have NEVER had a normal schedule, let alone normal hours, this meant that on this day off, we spent the earlier part of the day on our boat, roaming the Gulf of Mexico and the surrounding islands just chilling and listening to the radio.

Little deciding if she wants to jump into the water

Once her Life Jacket is off, she’s a little worried about jumping in

Once on the Beach, she’s running full sprint up and down chasing crabs

Actually catching her to get the Life Jacket back on is a whole different story

She sure does love to be a Boat Dog

After a few hours of just relaxing and recharging the body, we came back home and packed up the cooler with food and drinks and picked Heath and Jolie up. We loaded up Heath’s boat and headed for a secluded Sandbar that only exposes itself at super low tides like we were going to experience tonight. This sandbar is HUGE and far out into the Gulf……like 8 miles out, so most people don’t know of it or they just cant find it. Luckily Heath knows it’s location, so he was able to bring us right to it.

Once there, we put the Stick Anchor in and Cindy set up the grill. She had packed the cooler with a 5 course meal for us to enjoy and while she got to cooking it on the Weber, the rest of us caught up on the local gossip. Living in such a small town, this lasted all of 5 minutes before we were back to our usual talk of Houseboats and Liveaboards. This encompasses the majority of mine and Heath’s conversations.

The water is already at 82 degrees, so it didn’t take long before I was jumping over the side to cool off. Heath got in too, and we wandered around the sandbar in ankle deep, bath water which was just starting to expose itself with the approaching Low Tide. You really had to watch where you stepped as there were so many Sand Dollars that it was the equivalent of looking into Mother Ocean’s savings account. No matter where you looked there were big, giant sand dollars in the water all around your feet.

There was a slight offshore breeze keeping you comfortable and the water was a pane of glass. Literally Heaven on Earth if the only way to describe it. With food ready, we climbed back in the boat and ate like kings and queens. As the sun finished setting, we all went for a long walk to let the food digest now that the sandbar had fully exposed itself.

The Food is so good that Heath wont even take his eyes off it for a picture

My dreams of a houseboat are that when we find areas like this, we don’t have to come back into port. We’d simply play and enjoy the area we’re exploring and when the tide starts to come back in, we simply climb aboard and hang out on the boat till the sun comes back up. Then we’d motor back into port and go back to our normal lives, but could have slept out on the water enjoying the utter sound of NOTHING!

At one point, we all just sat in our chairs on the boat, and except for the rumble of thunder and the lightning show off in the distance, there was not a sound to be heard. It was a magical night spent with good friends, great food and phenomenal memories that’ll last a lifetime.