It’s February, so in the spirit of this Month of Love, I asked my soulmate, Ernie, to join me on the podcast because it’s a very special month for us.
Although I’ve talked about how we met and our journey to living out our vision here at the beach on the podcast before, I thought it would be the perfect time for Ernie to share some of his own beach stories and reminisce about our beach adventures together.
You’ll have to wait until the end to hear his answer!
Links to podcasts mentioned in this episode:
Finding My Voice: How the Beach Led Me to Podcasting
Lost and Found at the Beach: Connected to My iPhone
Meet Your Soulmate, Quit Your 9 to 5, and Move to the Beach! My Story
Click here to download the transcript:
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Paige :
Hello, friends and fellow lovers of all things beachy. Welcome to The Beach weeks, the podcast that shares stories about the beach and our connection to it. I'm your host Beach lover, Paige Friend, helping you reconnect with the beach, return to your soul, and reimagine your life. So grab a cool drink, relax in your beach chair, stick your toes in the sand, and enjoy this episode of The Beach Hey, beach lover. It's February, so in the spirit of the month of love, I asked my soulmate, Ernie, if he would like to join me on the podcast because It's a very special month for us. And although I've talked about how we met and our journey to living out our vision here at the beach on the podcast before, I thought it would be the perfect time for Ernie to share some of his own beach stories, and we could reminisce a bit about our beach adventures together. We talk about his growing up in Tampa and always being in the water, camping and spring hopping. You'll hear his stories about a wild encounter he had on an island beach in Florida and a rare sighting he had off an aircraft carrier.
Paige :
We talk about our beach adventures that we've had together, where we would like to go next, and I ask if he has ever considered moving away from the beach. You'll have to wait until the end to hear his answer. Hey, Ernie.
Ernie:
Hey, Paige.
Paige :
Hey. Welcome to the podcast. Yeah.
Ernie:
Thanks. It's been a while.
Paige :
I know. Right? Yeah. I just wanted to get you on today because in past episodes, I've talked about Our story, my story, how I met my soulmate with my 9 to 5 and moved to the beach and thinking that this month is love month. And it's a special month for us because it is our the anniversary when we met. It's the anniversary of our wedding on the beach and my birthday On Valentine's Day, all rolled into 1. Right? Yeah. So I was curious because we never really talked a whole lot about it. When we had started talking on the phone, then I went to Miami for that retreat with Julie, and I remember telling Julie, I think I found my soul mate.
Paige :
And meanwhile, you were where? You were in Jax Beach.
Ernie:
Yeah. Mhmm.
Paige :
Yeah. Because I think I said, it's my birthday, and you said something to the effect of, Well, why don't I meet you at the beach?
Ernie:
No. I think you had said, I said, what are you doing? He said, I'm just gonna go to the beach. And I said, oh, how are you going with? He said, just by yourself. So I said, okay. So, anyway, so I figured I figured I'd go ahead and set up a weekend and, you know, And hopefully, you join me. You know, we haven't met yet, so, you know, hopefully, you join me for the weekend. If not, you know, I'd have a nice place on the beach. So
Paige :
Did you think I would be a no show?
Ernie:
No. I I didn't think you you wouldn't show up. I just you know, obviously, we you know, we talked a lot on the phone Before that, first time meeting in person. So, I mean, I wasn't really sure how it was gonna go. So, you know, if you were there, great. Have a good time and, you know, see where it went from there.
Paige :
What made you pick the beach that you did?
Ernie:
I don't know. I was just I mean, it was just I don't I can't remember if it was really busy that weekend, and it was kinda limited on I mean, it was a nice beach. I've been to that beach before that we went to, And, just trying to find a nice place that was close to the beach, and then that was, you know, a nice beach and a nice hotel. So that's That's the one I picked.
Paige :
Yeah. It was that is a busy weekend. I think that's president's weekend.
Ernie:
Yeah. It was hard to find a place that come kinda planning that late.
Paige :
Yeah. Well, you did a really good job because the place you picked was right across the street from Treasure Island Beach. The weather, as I remember, was Beautiful.
Ernie:
Oh, yeah. It was a perfect weekend. Yeah.
Paige :
Yeah. It was really wonderful. I remember meeting you in the parking lot. And Yeah. This was the 1st time that we had met each other in person.
Ernie:
Yeah?
Paige :
Yeah. So I remember you had the truck, and it was all filled with just all kinds of beach Stuff. And I remember the chairs. Remember those chairs?
Ernie:
Oh, yeah. Yeah.
Paige :
Tommy Bahama chairs.
Ernie:
Tommy Bahama chairs. Yeah.
Paige :
And I remember setting those chairs out, And then we just, like, left them there the whole weekend. We never brought them back.
Ernie:
Yeah. That's true. We left them there overnight.
Paige :
Yeah. And no nobody bothered them. That was pretty cool.
Ernie:
Yeah.
Paige :
You're a Florida boy. What do you recall about being by the water, by the ocean? What does that mean to you? What does the beach and the water mean to you?
Ernie:
I mean, I lived on in Tampa. I didn't live in at at the on the beaches. Lived in Tampa. So, I mean, I went to the beach a lot, but I was I was on the water a lot. We had a catamaran, like, 18 foot catamaran, And so I take that in Tampa Bay quite a bit. So I just love the water from the beginning. There's lots of, you know, nice springs in Florida, so we go to the springs whenever we could do a lot of camping. So it's always outdoors and, you know, beach is close.
Ernie:
It's beautiful. So went there a lot on the weekends.
Paige :
Yeah.
Ernie:
Went camping a lot. I was young with my family. We, of course, you know, start off tent camping, then we get a pop up. It was nice. When I was young, I remember a couple weekends a month, we go camping somewhere.
Paige :
Yeah. There's Some really, really great parks in Florida. And the springs, like you said, they're amazing. Tell me about your. What's your favorite spring?
Ernie:
There's a lot of beautiful springs. It depends, like, if you wanna go see manatees, 3 sisters is probably the best. Maybe it's to talk to these fun to bring people to because it's it's kind of under a canopy of trees and Super cold and now the fun thing about that one is just hearing everybody scream when they jump in because it's really a fast fast moving spring. So when you jump in, you're You're automatically jettisoned down river. So once you're in, there's no getting out. I remember one time we were there, and We were just jumped in maybe 15 minutes. I mean, because it's kind of fun because like as you float down, I mean, you can hear people scream as they jump in for about 15 minutes as you're floating down river. So just about when that was kind of out of ear earshot, it was really quiet.
Ernie:
People just kind of chilling out at that point, kind of settling in. It's about a, I don't know, 4 hour float if you do the long one. So we were all just kind of settling in, and then all of a sudden, you see these dark clouds come over. And then just out of nowhere, this lightning bolt hits lightning bolt hits like at the side of the river. I mean, you could see it. It was like, I don't know, a couple 100 feet away. It was so close that it sent Like, electric shock waves in the water. You could feel it through everybody's body.
Ernie:
Before that, you know, people were talking, have a good time, kind of goofing around, then everybody went dead silent. There was no noise at all, and I was just looking around to see to see if anybody got hurt. You know, I was just like in shock for a minute, and then the lightning just came down. I mean, it was just like all over the place. People were screaming. There was no way you can't get out. It's just this kind of marshy, muddy quicksand kind of stuff on the side, so you can't get out, so you just have to keep riding down the river. And that was the quietest I've ever been on that river.
Ernie:
I mean, it was dead silent. Everybody was, like, bridging themselves to try to get their their entire body out of the water on the tubes. You know, every once in a while, somebody would get out of balance and roll over to start screaming, you know, like they're gonna get shocked to death. And so that went on and unload for half an hour, 45 minutes. And then, you know, it kind of cleared up, and everything was fine after that. But that was kind of Interesting. So that's it's a tuck. It's a fun one to go to.
Ernie:
Rainbow River is nice. It's nice and long and kinda slow. It got some deep parts to it. You know, here's just, you know, just a bunch of springs. They all have their different different, kind of feel about them.
Paige :
Yeah. What what struck me the first time I went to the springs is how clear the water is. I had never been in water like that, so clear you could see right down to the bottom. When I learned how to scuba dive, our last dive was down the Rainbow River.
Ernie:
Yeah. The Rainbow is a nice lot of diving there. A lot in Crystal River, there's a lot of diving, but Crystal River is nice, but it's definitely not the clearest spring. There's so many a lot of people go get certified to dive at Crystal River, because it's large and this has it's pretty accessible, but it's not to me, it's not the most beautiful springs. There's some that are I remember 1 summer, We went we just got in the car, drove down to Ocala, and no other plans and tried to how many springs we could hit in a day. So, yeah, we were averaging, I don't know, 5 or 6. There's some that are just a just a big you know, it looks like a, big swimming pool, you know, with, you know, maybe a small stream leading out. You know, just beautiful, not even it wasn't even like in a state park or anything just kind of off the side of the road.
Ernie:
There's some some large and some small, but they're just all over. I mean, there's probably 50 small springs in the Ocala area, Ocala National Forest that you can go. So it's you know, if you're looking for something to do with the family, just hop on the car and see how many you can hit a day. And then wherever we ended up, we got a hotel and did it again the next day. I think we did it for, like, 3 days. So I probably saw, I don't know, 12 or 15 springs there maybe, like that. Mhmm. So it was fun.
Paige :
Tell me about a beach adventure you had up north of here where the the wild horses, I think.
Ernie:
Oh, Cumberland Island. Yeah. Is beautiful. It's up around the Florida Georgia border, and it's an it's an island. It's a state State park, I think. Yeah. It's a state, not a federal park. But, anyway, the you you could take your own boat out there, But, really, the the best way to get out there is by ferry.
Ernie:
So me, Navy buddy of mine, and my little brother, Darius, went camping, and, you know, we didn't really plan that well for it. We just do a bunch of stuff together and went out there. And And, so we got the ferry across, and, yeah, we we thought we were gonna camp, like, right there at the ferry landing because there's a campground there with water and electric and all that. Well, that was full. We really didn't plan very well to make reservations. We're just gonna go. So the next spot we could go was, like, 4 miles down. It's like rough camping, but that was the next spot that was available.
Ernie:
So we're like, okay, we'll do that. So we I mean, we way had way too much weight. You know, we packed all this stuff. And so, anyway, we get down there, and, it was pretty long hot day. We get down and get everything set up, and it was beautiful. We're the only ones there at that campground. I mean, there was nobody we didn't see anybody the entire weekend, except for when we get back at the ferry landing. Well, except for 1 person.
Ernie:
I'll explain that in a minute. And, so, yeah, we had a good time. We, you know, walked out to the beach During the day and kind of hung out, and like I said, there's nobody around. There's like gait as you walk from our campsite. It was probably Half a mile, there's gators, these little ponds, and, you know, there's a lot of wildlife there. And I remember, 1 morning, probably the 2nd morning we were there, we got up and everybody was you know, didn't sleep very well. Got up and we were going down to the beach, and it was super foggy that morning. I mean, it was you couldn't really see a 100 feet in front of you.
Ernie:
And so we're down at the beach, and we're just kinda checking things out. There's lots of shells. And and all of a sudden off in the distance, you could hear this noise kind of Down the beach, I mean, it sound like it was pretty far away. We were like, oh, that's strange. You know, there was because there's there's I mean, There's no there might be a couple of cars there, but they certainly none on the beach that we ever saw. Anyway, so we're standing there, and all of a sudden, The noise is getting louder and louder and louder, and all of a sudden, these beautiful horses break through the fog, and they're like running within 50 feet up as just running down the beach. And and, unbeknownst to us, there's a bunch of wild horses on that island that they let roam free.
Paige :
You didn't even know about that?
Ernie:
Well, I mean I mean, I knew there was wild horses there, but, I mean, who would expect them to come galloping down the beach through the fog? You know, I mean, so that was super cool. And, yes, they they ran ran down the beach. That's the only time we saw them, but it was just incredible. There's probably, Maybe 10 or 15 just running together down the beach. And, unfortunately, that was before cell phones, so we didn't really have, You know, anything quickly accessible to take a picture, so it was just a snapshot in the mind on that one, but, definitely, unforgettable. So that was like a Saturday, I think. And then, Sunday morning, we're we're heading back, and And my little brother, Darius, was there, and we kinda, you know, packed some extra stuff in his backpack. And, it was a long it was a 5 mile Hike back, to the to the ferry landing and and I looked back and my brother was complaining about having all that extra weight in his backpack.
Ernie:
So he's like dumping stuff as we're walking. He's like, I'm not carrying this stuff anymore. So anyways, that was kind of funny, you know, he had Enough for that. And then, and then like way off in the distance, there is this, you could see there was someone like in a Chair, like, right at the water level. The the beach is really wide there. I mean, they're at the time, I don't know if it's that way all the time with the tide whatever over there. Probably 50 yards of sand kinda, you know, so there's plenty of room. So, anyways, we saw, you know, saw the person way over there, and as we got closer, It turned out to be a woman.
Ernie:
I think she was, nude sunbathing, so we were trying to give her as much room as we could, you know. And I looked back, and my and my youngest Brother is, he's, like, walking right along. It's like we were, like, walking up in the sand, which made it a little bit harder to walk because it was, you know, light sugar sand. But he was walking, like, right along the, right along the waterline and got with it about got with it about 50 feet of this woman. Like, there's no one Out there, right? This random guy, you know, just kind of walks by her and she of course, she was startled, you know? Got I got dressed and was like looking around to see what was going on. And she had no idea that we were there. We were just trying to pass her without, you know, without disturbing her, but it was kind of funny that yeah. He just kinda walked right up on.
Ernie:
Anyway, so she, yeah, probably ruined her day. You know? And then when we made it back, the ferry and, you know, it was a
Paige :
good story.
Ernie:
Yeah. Yeah. It was fun, though. We had a good time.
Paige :
So I'm assuming that there That's a beach that's not heavily populated, although I know maybe at certain times of the year, there's a whole lot of people The visit or is it because it's coming?
Ernie:
I don't think well, it's my understanding. I'd have to go back and look at it again, but, I mean, last time I looked into it, there are a few houses. It's kind of cool because there's a few old houses there that are kind of no long no one ever no one lives in. I think the rule is People that had like, families that have houses can keep them and pass them down, but you can't sell them. So I think at the time, there might have been 10 houses kinda spread out, And then I believe that was on the south side of the island. I think on the north side, there's a pretty famous pretty famous hotel. Like, a lot of celebrities go They're either hang out or have weddings or whatever because it's really isolated, and they can control, like, who's on the island, Certainly, on that half of the island. I can't remember the name of the resort, but it's like a nice resort hotel there that, you don't hear much about until someone famous comes and stays there.
Ernie:
Mhmm. That's kind of cool. So there's there's a bunch of old houses. I mean, some large ones. They were they were really large houses at one time, and they're sort crumbling in, you know, as time goes on. And there's a few houses that people still live in, but like I said, I think, they can sell them back to the state, You know, if they're if the family does no longer want some, I guess, but they can't sell them to someone else. They have to sell them to the state or pass it down, which make it makes it nice because there's no cars there. There might be some down near that resort side, but that's that's on the north side.
Ernie:
We never really went that far. But, yeah, you do. You See animal tracks, bikes, a lot of bikes, but Mhmm. No vehicle, which is kinda nice.
Paige :
Yeah. Sounds kinda like Fire Island
Ernie:
Yeah.
Paige :
Up north. Yeah. Wow. Okay. When are we going? I'm ready to go. Speaking of going, we had just been to one of our new favorite beaches, Jensen Beach. I talked about it last year in a podcast because we went and I was just floored By how beautiful it was.
Ernie:
Yeah. I mean, you know, if you if you travel and see a lot of beaches, each one has a unique personality. And that one that one, fortunately, at least for the hotel we were at, there's lots of county and state land that's been preserved. So, I mean, there are houses for sure, about at least from the hotel we were in, if you go south, there's probably a mile or two that's undeveloped, and then there's you go north, there's a little bit of A little bit of housing, and then but you get back into probably several miles of undeveloped beach. So that's kinda nice. So Right next to the hotel, there was a beach access. So there's people that mostly stayed kind of north of the hotel we were at, but not a lot went South. So it's a beautiful beach.
Ernie:
I mean, lots of shells. We found lots of large shells. It's not real wide. It's it's more of a narrow beach.
Paige :
What What did you think of the water? We didn't go in, but
Ernie:
Oh, the water's beautiful there. It's, really clear. I mean, the beach that you know, in Jacksonville, it's got nice Speeches, of course, but, you know, like I said, each beach is different. The ones up here because there's a, the river comes out just north of us where we're at, So there's lots of, you know, the water's kind of a little bit darker. All that sand that comes out of the river kind of spreads out, as it comes out the mouth of the Ready. So except for certain parts of the year depending on the tide, if the tide's pushing, you know, not coming from the north to the south, we get a lot of sand that way. But if not, our beaches are fairly clear, but nothing like the beaches down south or on the Panhandle. Panhandle is more, probably a greenish clear.
Ernie:
It Seems like south is more of a bluish clear water.
Paige :
Yeah. Yeah. The aquas and the blues, and then the Emerald Coast, We we got to go up there about a year ago in the spring
Ernie:
for
Paige :
our wedding and and, wow, what was your impression of that? Because I I think I talked a little bit about that in the podcast, but if I haven't, I need to we went to Fort Walton Beach. I had never seen water like that, at least in the gulf.
Ernie:
Yeah. Fort Walton's beautiful. Destin, I'm sure, you know, anybody that likes beaches have certainly heard of Destin. I mean, like I said, each each has its own personality. Those beaches, especially Destin, Huge resorts. And, unfortunately, Florida passed a law a while back that if you own beachfront property, If your county or city approves it, you can own from the sand dunes to the waterline, basically. Unfortunately, I mean, that that was they should never pass that Not every part of Florida does that, fortunately. It's the probably the more affluent areas.
Ernie:
You know, they've passed their own laws to basically keep people off the beach. So there, the big resorts they own from the sand dunes all the way to basically a high tide. So you have to walk sort of like right where the water washes up on shore. Have it all roped off, and you can't Sit there. So, basically, the public areas are at the end of the street. So what's what's a street? Sixty feet wide or whatever? So, like, 60 feet wide I'd coming from the asphalt all the way straight at the beach. I mean, it was so packed when we were there. The public areas were so packed that I mean, literally, you had to walk over people to get to your spot if you could get a spot.
Ernie:
So if you had a spot, By the time that, you know, noon or 1 came along, it was so packed that you had to, like, walk over other people to get go to the bathroom we're just get, you know, to the beach or whatever. So, I mean, you know, but, you know, once you get to the water, it's beautiful, but That was just the personality of that beach.
Paige :
Yeah. Yeah. What did you think about the sandbar?
Ernie:
Oh, yeah. Yeah. What was the name of that? It was, what was that?
Paige :
I don't know. I just call it the sandbar. I can look it up.
Ernie:
Yeah. So it's this beautiful area. So we rented a pontoon boat. It was you, me, and kids and grandkids. I don't know where it was at, 10 or 12 of us. It was a bunch of us, and, rented a a big pontoon boat with a slide on the back. That was fun. I meant they
Paige :
have 2 slides. A
Ernie:
double slide. Yeah. 2 slides. Yeah. And, it was fast and really comfortable, and I cannot remember the name of that sandbar. But anyway, you go out there and it's, I mean, it's so popular. They actually have restaurants, floating restaurants out there, and the restaurants have these little boats that go around, found, with, you know, with, like, all their staff on it that take orders and bring food back and forth food and drinks back and forth from the from the floating restaurant. So that was kind of cool.
Ernie:
I mean, it's my 1st experience doing anything like that. There's I mean, there was easily hundreds of boats out there we were there, and I'm sure that wasn't that wasn't even a holiday weekend, I don't think. So I imagine it gets much busier, But the water is so beautiful. I mean, you're you know, you get out of the boat, and you're standing in 3, 4 foot of water. It's just totally clear. I mean, you could see a a penny on the on On the sand at the bottom if there if you threw 1 out there.
Paige :
I know. That blew me away because I was thinking about the sandbar party that we had gone to over in the Tampa side, Tampa Saint Pete. Right? And the water there was this kind of Yellowish, greenish, murky. I think probably because there's so many people, you know, wading through it. It just looks like a A big kiddie pool in a way.
Ernie:
Yeah. Well, was it like, it wasn't like a bay area, but, yeah, it's the water Definitely wasn't as clear. Yeah. And that was kind of fun, though, because it actually had a floating, band. They had someone had a big pontoon boat, and they had, like, All the generator they had 2 pontoon boats like all the generators and equipment on 1, and then they had the band and the speakers on another one. So you're just Well, there was thousands of people there just hanging out. They're just hanging out. Everybody's having a good time, and the band's playing at one end, and And that was put that was pretty interesting.
Ernie:
That was, that was in Saint Pete right off of Saint Pete.
Paige :
Yeah. Yeah. We haven't been there for a while, but, yeah, the sandbar If Fort Walton was spectacular, I I just loved it. Loved it. Is there a beach in Florida that You, in particular, wanna go to? You've been down to Key West.
Ernie:
I'm sure. Key West. I really haven't been to any beaches on the Gulf Coast way down south. I've been to all I'm I wanna say all the beaches, but most of the beaches on the on the East Coast. Yes. On the Gulf Coast, I've been kind of Tampa, Saint Pete, north of there.
Paige :
Been down to Sarasota?
Ernie:
Yeah. I've been to Sarasota, But when you much south of there haven't been Yeah.
Paige :
Like the Naples area and
Ernie:
that Yeah. Which here it's pretty beautiful. But, yeah, that they're supposed to be what's that one beach have all the, Like a really special shells.
Paige :
Sanibel.
Ernie:
Sanibel. Yeah.
Paige :
Yeah.
Ernie:
Yeah. That's, that'd be a nice place to go to.
Paige :
Definitely wanna take a trip there sometime.
Ernie:
Yeah.
Paige :
You joined the navy. Did you join the navy because I don't know. You just like water and you just thought that would hanging out and on a ship in the water would be You're saying?
Ernie:
No. I think mostly because my dad was in the navy, so I think that's what probably steers a lot of people towards a certain Military entity, but, yeah, my dad was in the Navy, and I was still in college at the time and wasn't exactly sure what I wanna do. So, yeah. Just decided to join the Navy.
Paige :
Yeah. And you ended up touring the where were you? The Pacific.
Ernie:
Yeah. Yes. I was I went to a year of electronic school in Memphis, and then my 1st duty station was back here. It was in Jacksonville. And then I was in Japan for 3 years and then back at Jacksonville. So
Paige :
So you were on aircraft carrier?
Ernie:
Yeah. I was on aircraft carrier.
Paige :
And you had a really good story to tell about a happening, and I had you tell that story at the end of One of the podcasts, I think it was, Close Encounters of the Marine Kind part 2, and I just love that story. Will You tell us that again.
Ernie:
Yeah. So a little background. I mean, I was on a older aircraft care even at the time. It was, USS Midway. I think it was built, like, right after World War two, believe it or not, but, I mean, it was in pretty decent shape. This was back in the in the late eighties, so the ship itself was probably 35, 40 years old at that point. But at the end, they took decent care of it. Anyway, so I was stationed so the ship was home ported in Japan, which means it always stayed in Japan unless it was on duty, it never came back to the States.
Ernie:
So whenever we you know? So we were in Japan when the ship wasn't Out to sea, which was kinda nice. Got to see a lot of Japan, and then we would go out all over Asia. So went Went to South Korea, Thailand, went to Australia. I was in we were there for the 1st Gulf War. So I got to see that whole side of the world. You know, a lot of people in the Navy or the military end up in Europe. I never went to Europe. It was all, Asia and the Pacific, so I went to Philippines a lot.
Ernie:
So, you know, it's beautiful there. Saw a lot of marine life. I remember one time, we were Kind of near the Philippine Islands, and, you know, aircraft carriers large and, obviously, you know, opposing militaries wanna find aircraft carriers. So they were and and they're pretty easy to to see, you know, in radar certainly at a distant or, you know, at a at a medium distance. So they were practicing. It was kinda cool. They were practicing, Like hiding the aircraft carrier from another military's radar systems by Going behind these there's lots of small I mean, there's thousands of small islands in the Philippines, and they would so they would sort of go behind the higher mountainous small islands. And some probably were uninhabited or very few people on them.
Ernie:
That was kinda cool. It's beautiful. It's probably the closest we got to actual coast, because carriers don't typically get too close to a to a coast unless they're pulling in just for safety reasons. And this in these cases, we got really close. So it was, I don't know. I happen to be up. I think I was working the night shift at that time. I was just getting off.
Ernie:
It was probably 6 or 7 in the morning, And, sun was coming up, and and there was hard hardly anybody around. So, you know, the nice thing on a kit Yeah. Although the auto carriers are fairly good sized that you could hardly ever get away from people. I mean, wherever you go, there's people. I think we probably had 35100, four Thousand. But they're not like cruise ships where, you know, there's the most of the space is dedicated to the war machine, you know, so there's not a whole lot of extra space to go to. So sometimes I would go on the very back of the ship. It's called the fantail.
Ernie:
There'd be a few people back there, but it's a good place to kind Just get some alone time. This particular morning, though, I was up on the very top, the flight deck where the planes landed to take off. And, they weren't flying fortunately at that time because the carrier was doing these maneuvers really close to shore. So anyway, I was literally on the very front of the carrier. I had my Legs dangling over the front. It was probably 60 feet down. You know? It's a very they're very bow where the planes take off.
Paige :
I imagine Your legs dangling over, and there's, like, nothing underneath you. Right? I mean
Ernie:
Oh, yeah. You can't see you can't see the ship because it kinda comes back and away from you. So when you're hanging over, it's just water straight down. And I've done that before, like I've done that before and seen like huge sharks And, anyway, saw all kind of marine life. You know, just kind of hanging out in the front early in the morning. But this particular morning, it was super calm because they were they were in this massive cove just practicing hiding the radar signature. There might have been, I don't know, just a handful of people on the flight deck. Nobody sitting on the very front where I was.
Ernie:
And Anyway, so they were super calm and clear, and the and the carriers like, you know, even at slow speeds makes that huge wake. And, you know, I had this wake going, and all of a sudden I just saw a couple of dolphins kind of playing in the wake which, you know, is is pretty common. And then probably in the next 20 minutes, There were it went from a couple to thousands of dolphins. Like, as as far as you could see, there was dolphins riding the wake. I mean, it's so impressive that The captain, which you rarely would do something like this, actually made a call to the entire ship. If you're not on duty, you need to come up and take a look at this because he goes, as a captain, I've never seen this myself. So anyway so then hundreds of people started coming up and checking it out, and and it's probably I don't know. Maybe lasted 20, 30 minutes of just the dolphins, just, you know, Massive pods of dolphins just out there playing around in our wake, you know, and then the ship eventually, you know, had to kinda get out of the Where they were at and head back out to sea.
Ernie:
So, unfortunately, I didn't have a camera with me at that time either because I was just kind of hanging out, you know, And I wish I did because that would have been I mean, if I had a decent camera, that would have been a a National Geographic photo right there because it was just just incredible.
Paige :
Yeah. Yeah. I just love that story. Well, bringing us back to here in Florida. You got me To the beach. Thank you so much, babe. Would you ever move from the beach?
Ernie:
I don't know. I mean, you know, certainly, I like where I'm at now. I don't I don't know if, you know, if we bought a 2nd place, maybe. Be I don't you know, like, my kids are close. Your kids aren't settled in any particular place yet. So, yeah, there's no reason for me to go anywhere.
Paige :
No. No. Whenever you yeah. I mean We bought this house. It's our forever home. And Yeah.
Ernie:
We have a nice place. So, you know, we're close to my kids, which I'm really grateful for. It's a nice beach. I mean, Jacksonville Beach is a, you know, it's a nice beach, but still a small community feel. And, Yeah. Obviously, whenever your kids get settled, we'd like to spend some time more time with them, but they're both kind of influx right now. So
Paige :
Yeah. Yeah. Do you remember when we got the ocean kayaks and took them out At sunrise, it was just so beautiful that whenever anybody would come to visit, we'd go and And tried to do it again, and I think we got Bailey to go out with us one time and Somebody else. But there was that one time I went out with you, and your mom was there. She just went out to the beach with us. Do you remember that? And Mhmm. I call it my epic kayak Fail. Do do you remember how that went?
Ernie:
Yeah. We were just, getting the kayaks ready to go out, and I think I think you had just gotten whatever that was it a 10? Anyway, it was like, I don't think you had that app that iPhone very long. I think it was only a couple of weeks if I remember right. And, but, you know, had a great camera on it, so we wanted to take it out with this. So we bought the one of those Kind of, phone. Yeah. It has like a clear like a waterproof camera case you could put on your around your neck. Anyway, so we got the got the, kayaks all lined up.
Ernie:
I think I had went out first. I jumped in mine first and you were right behind me. And then then you're trying to get your boat in, and the waves were kind of picking up. It was kind of calm once you get past the sandbar, but there's a little bit of waves right at you had hopped in, and I think I was even yelling at you, get your no get your bow into the water, bow into the water. And You didn't have your bow in the water, so when the wave kind of came, it rolled over rolled over you, and the whole kayak rolled over. Everything that was in it fell out, and then, you weren't hurt or anything. But anyway, so we got everything kind of resituated, and then you were looking for your phone, which was around your neck before all that happened, and it was gone. Yeah.
Ernie:
So, went out water and just tried to feel it with our feet, hoping we could feel it. And then we tried the find a phone feature to see if maybe, well, it still had some battery if it had a signal strong enough to show us where it might be at. I think we did that for a couple days. We used the find a phone to see if it would pop up anywhere. Where
Paige :
Yeah. It's strange that it didn't just wash up on shore because all the rest of the stuff with the kayak.
Ernie:
Well, there was a lot. Yeah. There was a lot of undertone at that time, I think. But, yeah, I know you were pretty bummed about it because you were so happy to finally get that phone you were looking forward to for
Paige :
It was devastating.
Ernie:
For a while and yeah. It that that iPhone 10 lasted about 2 weeks.
Paige :
Well, I'm Sorry. I've learned my lesson.
Ernie:
Yeah. Yeah.
Paige :
Usually, when we go kayaking, I don't take my phone anymore.
Ernie:
Yeah. I don't mind taking mine. I mean, that was kind of a fluke
Paige :
Well, you have those adventures, and I hope we have a whole lot more to come. I love you, babe.
Ernie:
Yeah. I love you, babe.
Paige :
That was fun. I admit, my idea before I press the record button was that we would talk more about our love story. Because when I say February is a special month for us, Well, we had our 1st phone call on February 6th. Our wedding anniversary is the 16th. The 17th is the anniversary of the day we met in person to celebrate my birthday on 18th. The stories behind all of that could be an entire episode in itself, so let me know if you're interested and I can have Ernie come back to talk more about that. However, today, as I'm listening to the stories of his love for adventuring in the natural wonders of our beaches and springs and waterways, I'm filled with love and gratitude that we both listen to our soul's calling to live our best life together here at the beach. And speaking of living our best life, shortly after I published my 1st episode of 2024 about how I started this podcast and why, This beautiful, heartfelt message popped up in my Facebook DMs that I wanted to share.
Paige :
It's from Shirley in Pennsylvania who is preparing to make a Huge move in her journey to live her best life. And she wrote, I just wanted to tell you that you inspire me. I'm searching for a sole purpose, and I'm not sure of my direction. You've given me hope and serenity that it will all just fall into place. I just wanted you to know I thank you and look forward to more podcasts from you and finding my own path. Thank you for those kind words, Shirley. I will hold space for your vision and that it will all fall into place. Just keep listening to your heart and the beach.
Paige :
Thank you for tuning in to another episode of The Beach Speaks. If you enjoyed what you heard, please spread the beachy vibes and share it with a friend because, let's be honest, who doesn't want more beach in their lives? And if more beach is what you crave, go to the beachbeaks.com and sign up for my newsletter. It's an easy way to stay in the know, Collect some tips and travel hacks for your next beach adventure and find out what I'm doing at the beach!
Paige :
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The beach is speaking. Are you listening?
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