St. George Island - 05-23-2013

Looks like maybe the bird population is making a rebound at the beaches. Seems to be more living things on the beach and in the water than there has been there lately. Wish the water had been clearer to get better video of those stingrays, though...

Years ago me and a friend were fishing the channel near the St Marks Lighthouse for Redfish. I had just caught a nice one and went up to higher ground to put it in the cooler. These two big black guys saw me pulling the fish in and they both went down to where I had been when I caught it. I thought, no problem, there's plenty of access to the channel, and proceeded to get myself a cold beverage while I was at the cooler. I looked down at the channel where they were and saw them looking at each other, talking to each other standing about four feet apart. The wind was quite high and it was difficult to hear their voices over it, even though they were only about fifty feet away from me. All of a sudden I see a ray(black with spots) come out of the water in that channel right behind where these guys are standing waist deep in the water....had to be at least 6 feet across....goes over their heads and lands on the other side of them with a WALLOP!!! They both turned and looked at the water!?! They never even saw it! They would have had heart attacks if they had! I was amazed! We started to go down there and tell them what happened but I could hardly believe it myself.

LOL! Probably a real good thing that they DIDN'T see that ray flying over their heads, otherwise they may have polluted the water in the immediate vicinity.