I hate this time of the year. Football season is over. Not much going on event wise. Weather is ok. It’s tough finding stuff to get excit…..

WAIT A MINUTE!….

HOKEY SMOKERS BULLWINKLE!!!!.

I almost missed it. Today is Feb. 16 th.!

IT’S THE MANATEE FRITTERS BIRTHDAY TODAY!!!

WOOHOO! It’s been one year exactly since the first post launched this here virtual sailboat known as the Manatee Fritter. Over 400 posts, 300 comments, 120 fritterisms, thousands of happy visitors, and here it is. A full year later and the Fritter is still afloat. Wow! It made it! One full year. That’s longer than any relationship I’ve had with any of my ex girlfriends…may they rest in peace….hehehe.

So, what shall we do to celebrate? Ah, I know. I’ll bet y’all are wondering where I got the name, “Manateefritters” from? Well, it’s nothing much but here is how it goes:

Take one medium size manatee and dice it into small chunks. Seventeen days later when you are done dicing take the chu…. just kidding of course. You use a large food processor instead.
Ok, here is the real story.

When I first moved to the Keys four years ago I was living on a sailboat in Key Largo. The marina where I was docked was next door to a marine sciences school. The school brought in kids from all over the country for a 1 to 5 day school to learn all about the marine environment. It was a fantastic program giving kids who might otherwise never see the ocean a beginning awareness of the biology and science of the sea. (I would have loved to have had this when I was in school. All we did was go to a dairy farm. “Oh look kids, a cow!”). Anyways, the kids were taken out every day on boats to the reefs and other areas to study the marine life. As it so happened, I was docked on the canal where they came through. Many times when they were coming in or out I would be out on deck cooking supper on the grill. The instructor always asked what I was cooking and I would reply, “Manatee Fitters!”. The kids would all give me with strange looks, not knowing if I was serious or not. Well, it always got a good laugh so when I decided to try my hand at blogging, I wanted to come up with a catchy name, and here we are today…a growing manateefritters fleet.

Since that fateful day in February, the little blog has grown into 4 separate blogs with nearly 25,000 visitors the first year out. I was able to spin off Livingwithanipad, now known as Fritterhosting which chronicles my use of only an iPad for all my computer needs. Later, I was able to create Pedalfritters which is all about bicycling with a Keys twist, and finally, I took the original Mango Water Sports and reinvented it into a blog about paddle sports. I’m sure there will be more in the future but that’s the virtual armada for now.

Putting the whole thing together was very easy, at least for me. Having built many a rudimentary website in the past, it was pretty simple to grab some domain names, hosting, and have at it. Creating the blogs has been an excellent learning experience. I now have a very good working knowledge of WordPress, the top free blogging program on the interwebs. Incorporating it all using just an iPad has also proved to be a valuable learning experience. And most importantly, it’s been a lot of fun. Some of the posts created some interesting feedback, some of it good and some, not so good. It was fun researching some of the story lines, and seeing the final result right there on the screen.

The down sides? Only one really big one. None of it has made any real money yet. A few penny’s on affiliate ads but that’s about it. Beyond that, blogging has been one of the most satisfying things I have done in years. I highly recommend it for a hobby or if you can make it work, a career.

As for the future? Building the the traffic of course. Better content, maybe some other diverse subjects. I know what you’re thinking, social media. But I am resisting the urge to throw up a Facebook page or relight the Twitter fires. (emphasis on the throw up part) There’s just something about it that’s not right. We’ll see what happens. For now, it’s just me on the iPad, and you out there. And in closing, let me, Capt. Fritter, send out a whole pant load of thanks to all of you who came aboard this virtual sailboat called the Manatee Fritter and joined me on the voyage. We got many places to go and see, loot and pillage, and generally get into trouble. Spread the word and add to the crew. It’s going to be a fun second year.

Capt. Fritter