It’s Bokeelia time. Bokeelia is a small fishing village on the northern tip of Pine Island, Florida. Our families have been fishing this area for 3 generations and as Pam and I started getting older, we began appreciating a simpler form of the trip: we take kayaks and now, paddleboards. We found a place called “The Beachhouse” which is right on Charlotte Harbor and has a place for us to keep and launch our kayaks. They rent rooms by the day or week, which is great for us. We wake up looking at the harbor and within 5 minutes can be on places to catch fish or little mangrove islands to explore. May is a great time to come for the temperature, but it’s a roll of the dice on the wind. This trip, most days have had a significant north wind, which inhibits us from launching on the shore (we are facing north). Pam’s brother was staying nearby with his girlfriend and his boat, so the four of us did some fishing/exploring trips out to Boca Grande and Cayo Costa. The first day out we caught lots of small sharks and Spanish Mackerel and a few large trout. I really expected to see a lot of snook, but that and the pods of white bait were nowhere in evidence. The water is clear and blue and is one of the best things about this area. Some times of the year, this isn’t so, and it has a lot to do with rain and the floodgates of Lake Okeechobee. Pam finally talked me into getting a pair of Costa Del Mar sunglasses. I choked on the price, but finally decided to go the whole distance and got a pair with the 580 glass. What was astounding wasn’t so much that I could see into the water more clearly, it was the color difference. It almost seemed like wearing night vision goggles for water. I could spot sandbars off in the distance by the glowing bright blue and see the patches of grass easily. I took off the glasses and the water looked an even dark green. The glasses had an unexpected effect of making me feel happy, like I was looking at the world as if it were a beach postcard. It looked the way I remembered Grand Cayman from years ago. This effect seems to be most pronounced when the sun is directly overhead. I would have to say after only two days of having these glasses, that the trip has been greatly improved for me by having them on when we are out fishing or just paddling on the water. I have started to wonder if there is glass such as this for my camera…this seems to be more than just polarized. I have heard it said that the glass is more important than the megapixels before. I can understand that better now…