On Wednesday, we were having dinner and talking about what we should on the weekend.
The original plan was to go hiking at Kennesaw Mountain, but jokingly he brought up going fishing at Florida.
When he saw that I was interested, we both started getting excited and booked a hotel as soon as we got home.
So on Friday night, he came over to my house and we had dinner.
We packed up and forced ourselves to take a nap because we wanted to get on the road at around 2AM so that way we can fish from the early morning.
We woke up from our 4 hour nap, put some gas in, grabbed some snacks and got on the highway.
It was raining heavily in Atlanta, but about an hour into the drive, it stopped raining.
The drive took about 5 hours and we only made one stop on the way. We talked, ate snacks and sang songs until we saw the sun rising.
We just recently visited Okaloosa on Labor Day but we both really enjoyed fishing on the pier, so we decided to come back.
We didn't notice it on our first visit but saw that there was a huge beach ball (probably fake) on top of one of the hotels.
We arrived a little past 7AM, and thankfully there wasn't that many people fishing.
There were these huge birds on the top of the poles that were trying to take peoples fish as they pulled it over the rail.
I still can't get over how pretty the water was.
When we were fishing back in Labor Day, we saw a huge hammerhead shark, probably about 5FT long swimming pretty close to shore.
Everyone on the pier started yelling down at the people who were swimming in the ocean to get out. It was pretty intense.
But after a few minutes later, everyone just went back in.
I wouldn't have even put a toe into the water if I was that close to being next to a shark.
To fish on the pier you don't need a license, instead they charge you a fee of $7.50 for the whole day.
I had it on for about 5 hours and no surprise, when I took it off later, there was an obvious mark from the sun.
It still surprises me how in such a short span of time, he knows so much about fishing and all the types of saltwater fish species.
Plus, putting on the hook, weight and all that stuff takes time and patience, I wouldn't be able to do it.
I'm so glad I have him to cut the bait and do all the gross work :)
I don't know if it's because it got a bit colder, but even if it was a 3 day weekend, there wasn't that many people on the beach compared to Labor Day.
The first fish that I caught on that day was a Remora - which is also known as a suckerfish.
They attach themselves onto sharks, whales and even boats.
There's a suction cup looking thing on the top of their heads and they basically hitch a free ride on sharks/whales, while eating the scraps that fall out of their mouth.
After fishing for awhile, we decided to check in to our hotel so that way we could eat, rest and take a nap.
Even if we booked our hotel last minute, we both agreed that it was probably one of the nicest and cleanest hotels we've stayed in.
We decided to stay at the same place when we're in the area again.
As soon as we got to the hotel I needed to use the restroom (ahem), so I told him to be watching TV so that way I could do my business in peace.
Of course, he didn't listen to me and kept his ear on the door for awhile.
Then he wrote me a little note (which he slipped under the bathroom door) and started to get our food ready.
We had some freeze dried food which was surprisingly really good.
I don't know if I was hungry or what but it tasted so good to me that I told him if we ever go hiking or if I'm just hungry,
we will go to REI and get some of that rice and chicken.
After sharing that together, we had some tuna and crackers with some beer - then we passed out for a few hours.
After our nap we went back out onto the pier to do some night fishing.
We originally planned on staying for about 4 hours but it was so cold, and I mean to the point where I had mucus coming out of my nose,
that we only stayed for about 2 hours because I couldn't handle it.
Plus, I don't know if it was because of the weather but mostly everyone on the pier didn't get to catch that many fish.
We were both so hungry afterwards, so we did what we normally do when we go on vacation.
We stopped by Popeyes and got an 8PC meal with our favorite coleslaw and green beans.
We took it back to the hotel and watched Dateline while we were eating.
After our shower, we both did a face mask, drank some beer and watched Dual Survival till we passed out.
He told me he was going to wake up at 8AM so that he could fish behind our hotel and get breakfast.
Whenever we go on vacation, we never wake up on time for the breakfast served in the hotel, so of course I assumed he was joking around.
At 8AM he woke me up, touched my face, rolled on top of me and did everything to get me up.
He hardly wakes up this early when were on vacation, but seeing how excited he was, I just had to drag myself out of bed and got ready.
We went downstairs to the lobby and had some breakfast.
We took some coffee togo and decided to check out the ocean right behind our hotel.
'
We went out and saw that there was an area where we could just relax and fish.
We fished a little and then went back up to our hotel to grab our things because check out was at noon.
At first we were going to start heading home right after we check out from our hotel,
but the spot behind our hotel was so nice that we decided to grab our chair, cooler and fishing poles and stay for a few more hours.
While he was busy fishing, I was enjoying the hot sun and drank some beer to cool off.
There were so many bee's around this one flower, I just had to take a picture of one of them.
It was so much fun fishing - we were able to catch a lot of different species (he even caught a pufferfish which I thought was so cute).
As he was throwing him back into the water, he accidentally dropped him and he blew up into a little ball.
Thankfully he was able to pick him back up and throw him into the water.
We stayed at the spot for about 4 hours, just fishing, laughing and talking (he couldn't stop laughing when I was reeling in the line - I guess I did it too fast that the weight attached to it flew fast and hard and ended up hitting my private area).
We're both so sunburnt right now but it was so much fun. Thank you for an amazing trip!