Camping on Dauphin Island, AL

We went camping with our friends Sarah and Berni Bernardoni & Sarah and Kelly Jones on Dauphin Island, AL. It was a really good time enjoying the outdoors and the beautiful fall weather.
Our first stop was to visit historic Fort Gaines. They were having a "Renaissance Festival" that Saturday. It was quite the experience. It wasn't so much a festival as it was a reason for a bunch of people to dress up in costumes and hangout. There wasn't much for people to see or participate in if you weren't part of the festival.
From there we went to the Audubon Bird Sanctuary. Kelly is an ornithologist, so we were able to learn about all the birds and other animals we saw along the trail. Along with lots of birds there were tons of butterflies everywhere. I thought this bush was pretty.
That night we cooked up some grub, spent time hanging out around the campfire and of course ate Smores.

Cruise to Mexico!

As a fun thing to do to celebrate Joe coming home we went on a 5 day cruise to Mexico with about 25 people we are involved with through the Navs. I had never been on a cruise before and was excited for the adventure.

We spend two days 'at sea' and had two days at port. The first stop was Progreso. Joe unfortunately got sick and so we didn't end up getting off the boat that day. :( The second port was Cozumel. We were able to go to the National Park on the island and go snorkeling. Cozumel is surrounded by a bunch of reefs and has some of the best snorkeling in the Caribbean. We saw lots of fish, starfish, sea turtles and barracuda. I wish we would've thought to get an underwater camera!

The highlights of the trip were the snorkeling and the time spent with everyone. It was great to have the chance to get to know the other leaders better.Our boat, the Holiday, at the port in Cozumel next to a Navy Ship that was also there.

A view of the water during our time in Cozumel. It was so clear and blue! It was hard to believe it was the Gulf of Mexico. The water here is sometimes clear, but nothing like it was there.

The Masons on the 'bus' taking us to the beach where we went snorkeling.

The beach on Cozumel we went snorkeling at. We swam out about a mile to the reef. The reef itself was about a mile long we swam along. It was amazing! We saw lots of different kinds of fish, starfish, sea turtles and barracuda.
On the tip of the island was a National Park. This lighthouse was a part of it. It had a great view of the water and the park from the top.
On top of the lighthouse

A different view from the lighthouse, showing the marshy area that had alligators in it. We saw one on the bus ride to the beach.

One of the dinners was a 'formal' night. Joe and Berni wore their Mess Dress uniforms. The food was pretty good. The fun part was getting to choose from a list of options and having a 3 course meal every night.

Corban and Katrina Bryant, Berni and Sarah Bernardonis and us. They are some of our closest friends in FL.

Into the Wild

Joe here. Finally, I'm back and contributing (after much cajoling) to our blog. For our post-deployment time I wanted to take Johnena on a series of dates, one of which was a beach camping trip. So, we traveled to Perdido Key National Seashore, near the AL border to camp out.
Here we are at Naval Live Oaks National Forest in Gulf Breeze, FL. Unfortunately, once we reached the Perdido Key we found out that the road into the camping area had been sanded over by our recent visit by Hurricane Ike. This turned the normal 1/2 mile walk to the camping beach into a 2.5 mile trek. Good thing we packed light!

Johnena is Air Commando tough!

Surprisingly, Florida in September is not as warm as one might think. In trying to keep our packs light, we only brought a bedsheet to sleep under. Once night fell the wind started blowing on the open beach and it got pretty chilly.

A cool part about the trip was the full moon which lit the beach up to nearly mid-day illumination. It enabled us to see alot of ghost crabs.