I am the only human on the island but I am not without company. Less than 50 yards from my tent is an osprey nest and the pair seem oblivious to my presence affording me a great source of viewing enjoyment.

My first order of business is setting up my tent above the high tide mark and planning my exploration around the tide table I have brought with me. Many sections of the beach disappear at high tide and it is virtually impossible to travel inland forcing you to wade through the ocean, something I was trying to avoid while carrying all my camera gear.

After breakfast I make arrangements with a local outfitter to drop me off on Panther Key, an uninhabited island just outside the Everglades National Park boundaries in the Ten Thousand Islands chain. We navigate through a virtual maze of islets until we reach the open waters of the Gulf of Mexico where we shoot north until we reach our destination. Panther Key is less than a mile wide and less than two long with almost 50% of its shoreline covered in beaches. The interior has dense vegetation and is completely impenetrable. After off loading my gear and provisions I make arrangements to be picked up tomorrow. Just like that I am off the grid and totally on my own.

This morning I get an early start and head to the Everglades City Rod and Gun Club for breakfast. I arrive too early to dine but this photo of the lobby makes the trip entirely worthwhile.

After pitching my tent in Collier-Seminole State Park I head out on a nature walk in the waning light and am rewarded for my effort with these two photographs. The first features what must have been a century long battle between an enormous strangler fig and an equally massive tree. The second is of the endangered Wood Stork perched over a tiny lagoon.

My first destination is the city of Cape Coral, home to Florida’s largest population of Burrowing Owls. When development first began in the area of Cape Coral and the land was clear-cut for homes, these owls found suitable habitat in the sandy soil of freshly cleared lots and set up residence. The owls either create new or make use of abandoned burrows to live in and nest. They stand approximately nine inches tall and weigh roughly four ounces.

Jeanine drove me to the airport early this morning for my 6AM flight to Fort Myers where I will start a 5 day solo adventure centered on exploration of the Everglades and surrounding areas. This photo taken on approach sums up southwestern Florida quite well. In the foreground is Lovers Key State Park a pristine wildlife sanctuary with Fort Myers Beach and its back to back high rise hotels just across the channel in the background.

Today was my final day at Sonos. Although I am very excited about my new opportunity with iRobot, I am going to miss the friends I have made over the last two years. I learned a great deal and am very proud of what my team and I were able to accomplish. There are many many things I am going to miss about Sonos but the commute through rush hour traffic (pictured above) is not one of them. Knowing this was the last time made the journey just a tad more tolerable. The heavy heart over saying goodbye had the opposite effect.

I leave early tomorrow morning for the Everglades where I will spend several days on a solo kayak and camping adventure.  I hope to come back with some great images and will post again late next week. The children have given me a great deal of advice on how best to avoid being eaten by an alligator. I will heed it all.

Jeanine and I love the fact that Hannah is a serious student and has introduced Kyle to the concept of a study date. Without the time demands of a varsity sport to deal with Kyle has taken his academic performance to a higher level and the hard work is paying off.

Any visit to the optometrist which does not result in a stronger prescription is one I am happy with. I wish the results of my soccer match this evening were as good as my checkup. We came from behind to tie the game at 4-4 but gave up two goals in the closing 2 minutes. I found the back of the net once with a line drive from 25 yards which the goalie was unable to handle.

This is the brush assembly from the electric motor which raises and lowers our downdraft ventilator in the kitchen. The narrow dingy yellow device on the right side of the image is a thermal overload interrupter which was tripping after a few seconds of motor use. Bypassing the device and rebuilding the motor revealed shorted windings and a replacement is now on order. It took several hours of work to disassemble the ventilator before I discovered the root cause of the problem. On the bright side, the replacement motor costs $150 compared to a new ventilator which runs $1400.

I used a long exposure to capture this image of Maya’s soccer team during an indoor training session. I like the resulting photograph more than the ones that more faithfully depicted the scene.

The rain we have been deluged with for the past few days has subsided, and the local rivers are all swollen. This is a view of the Sudbury River from the South Bridge Boat House. Note the height of the water on the bridge in the background. Normally, there is about 6 feet of clearance under the three barely visible arches.

Jeanine is at a workshop this weekend, and I have had the kids all to myself. Maya started the day with a dance lesson and finished with a birthday slumber party. In the middle, she had a soccer game in which she played goalie for a bit. Her team was down 3-0 and came back to win in the final seconds by a score of 5-4.