sailing north to Ft. Myers beach, baby!

 

Wilis is getting the hang of this passage-making.  No seasickness so far at all.  Good kitty.

We decided to try and tuck in behind Lover's Key to anchor up.  It looked like a great place to go dink around the wildlife refuge.  It's been awhile since we've called a bascule bridge to request an opening.

That got Willis' attention; he had to see what all the fuss was about.  We couldn't find a decent anchorage without being smack in the middle of a channel, so back out we went to sail on down to Ft. Myers Beach.  They have a large mooring field there.

 

Under the causeway we go, to Ft. Myers Beach.

 

We cruised past the shrimp fleet as we were looking for our ball to pick up.

After we got checked in and settled, we took a walk to the beach and pier.  It was late in the day.

We got in just in time as there were storms brewing out on the Gulf.  Every cloud has a silver lining.

 

Cap'n is my silver lining :)

This guy caught a small tipped reef shark.  I don't know why he filleted it...the meat smelled nasty.  Ewwww.....

Cap'n naturally found somebody to talk to!

 

Hello, sir :)

The following morning, we dinked up Mantanzas pass to see what we could see.  Right away, Donnie spotted this bald eagle.  That was so exciting- a first for me!  His buddy had just flown away with a big fish in his talons.  Very cool.

We passed this derelict homemade boat.  Look closely...at the top of the mast is a chair.  Without any sort of seatbelt, I'm sure.  No thank-you.

We passed this family of ospreys....

And of course, the usual dolphins.  We also had another first, though.  We watched dolphins 'do the dance' in the water.  I was video taping (like a voyeur), but I couldn't figure out how to edit it down.  You'll have to take me at my word.

After gassing the dink up, we went to Nervous Nellies for lunch.  I like this sign :)

There's over 300 items on the menu- it looks like a newspaper.  Our meal was delicious.

I felt like Lilly Tomlin- you have to be at least my age or older to know what that is referencing ;)

After lunch, we decided to head to the beach! 

It was a hot one again today...in the 90's.  We mostly stayed in the shade- or the water.

No trip to the beach is complete without ice cream!

The boardwalk is really pretty at night....but we were already tired of crowds of people.  Time to sail on....

There was no sunset to be had, but the sky was still beautiful.

Red at night, sailor's delight...G'night, y'all!  Tomorrow we sail to Sanibel Island.