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It's 8:20 and the sun just sank below the horizon a few minutes ago. A day's worth of jet ski wakes is finally settling to a leaden wallow, reflecting a thunderstorm's sun-backed edges in hot pink while, farther North, Miami's skyline begins to twinkle with the onset of the big city's nightlife. The boats around me are pointing haphazardly, their swing to the mooring ball a victim of the last boat to pass down the channel rather than the barest of whispers of wind that tease the flags in the mooring field. The evening is amazingly quiet though crickets can be heard from the island, their song broken only by the occasional sport bike honking on the throttle in the city. 

Then, in the distance, a crescendo of laughter and the gleeful voice of my two-year-old grandson as his papa plies the channel with the sad, gray, old dinghy they have come to name Eeyore. "Splash! Splash, Papa!" he shouts out, even though there isn't a single wave to grant his wishes.

I watch them as they make their way out the channel to their boat, The Floating Bear. It will be their first night sleeping aboard, a kind of test run to see if any changes need to be made for more permanent living before Grampy T arrives on Saturday. All is very quiet on Kintala this evening but I can hear the kids bantering and the content voices of their parents as they settle in for their first night in their new home. Soon the laughter dies down and the crickets once again dominate. Life is good.