Bucket List #19 Completed! Lighted Boat Parade

 I guess it's been a year, or more since I posted. I won't promise, but my plan is to start posting more regularly! We'll see if I can do that, at least I will try!

Cheri and I got to take item #19 off of my Bucket List that is on page 2 of this blog! We went out on a wonderful trip by boat to see the lighted boat parade. What I didn't know when I booked it a month ago was that it included a sunset cruise with dolphin, and Adventures in Paradise delivered! I highly recommend them, it was a wonderful trip! (Here is a link to their website: https://www.adventureinparadiseinc.com/) 

Before we left the dock, I caught this picture of the local pirate ship....I hope to take my grandkids on this one day, I think they would enjoy it...

There were also tons of these little tiki boats all over the place....how cute are these?!

We left out of Fort Myers Beach with Art as captain and his first mate Tom.

They were great hosts and really made the trip special. They apparently know the local dolphin and called on them for a show for our boat!

This was my first attempt at catching them, It was too far away and way off to the right, so I cropped it to see it better....

This was right at Fort Myers Beach where we left, but then we traveled to Sanibel Lighthouse...

We then passed under the causeway toward Pine Island, in search of dolphin...

I almost got this shot of the lineup under the causeway! close enough....

Here we hit the jackpot on dolphin, watch this video, I got a great shot...finally ..watch until about the middle of the video! click on the arrow to see it!

After we watched, photographed and took videos of the dolphin for a while, we watched the sunset....Tom put on a song by a local musician, Danny Morgan called Sanibel Sunset...watch (and listen) here...perfect timing.

We then headed back to Fort Myers Beach for the Lighted Boat parade...

It was so much fun to watch, taking pictures at night with a cell phone aren't the greatest..

Here is the pirate ship I showed you earlier...

and a few others...

They even had a decorated shrimp boat!

Remember that cute tiki? They had some of them decorated also, one did a 360! I missed it though, but here's a video of a couple of them...

Here's a couple other videos of some of the boats...

The trip was an absolute blast! The traffic wasn't bad, the weather was perfect, we were on a boat and we saw dolphin...all in all a perfect day!

Thank you to Cheri for helping me check this one off my bucket list! 

Stay Tuned!

::Shelllady Hugs::

Beach Bummin' the Gulf Coast...the Finale!

First, let me add this pic from yesterday that Jess took from the car as we were headed down the road toward our hotel! I think it's the perfect shot! Doesn't it make you just say "Ahhhhh!"?

 We got up early this morning and headed out to continue our beach trip to Fort Myers. The little town of Carrabelle is very remote and we found that it was going to take a lot of driving the get to a beach. Most of what we found was heavy woods and small remote towns. On the roads we chose, there was nothing to see. We realized it was going to take several hours to get back to the beaches, as the 'Big Bend' of Florida was more marshy, kind of like the everglades, and very wooded. I didn't want to go into Tampa, St. Pete as it's entirely too populated, so we finally ended up on I 75 headed to Sarasota to hit Siesta Key. It took several hours and we didn't arrive there until 2:30, so we decided to make the most of it as it would probably be our last beach for this trip...It also is a very populated area, but we finally made it!

It was a beautiful day!

Jess found another Keyhole Limpet...

and a sweet little Sand Dollar...

We picked up a few more little things, nothing really special, but it was a very nice walk on a beautiful white sand beach....Great Therapy!!!

We decided to find another fun place to eat, and found Siesta Key Oyster Bar another nice restaurant with seating outside!

We had another wonderful meal....!!

and of course had to try the Key Lime "pie"!! It also was great!!!

We arrived home about 8:00 tonight in Fort Myers....we missed a few beaches between Siesta Key and here, but ran out of daylight...that will have to be another trip! For now, I get to mark through another item on my Bucket list and got to spend some time with Jess and make some wonderful memories! Jess flies home late tomorrow afternoon and will spend her Christmas with her boys, I will miss her like crazy! We will have some more adventures in the not so distant future....

Thank you for coming along!

Stay Tuned!

::Shelllady Hugs::

Beach Bummin’ the Gulf Coast Part 2

 We got up early this morning and headed directly to Navarre Beach.  This has been one of the beaches I’ve been most interested in, in fact, it’s on my bucket list! We parked at the public beach parking lot, (Which is free by the way!) and headed down the beach toward the pier. Today most of the Blue Bottles (Man of war) were deflated above the high tide line so we didn’t have to worry too much about that…except for this one that was pretty far down the beach. Look how long those tentacles are!

I did find a few treasures today… a flat, (zig zag scallop) not perfect but I kept it!

Atlantic pearl oyster half

A tiny Bittersweet

And also a HUGE Bittersweet

And my best find of the day…a Baby Bonnet! (Scotch Bonnet)

Another Imperial Venus

And another great find….an Octopus! (He’s plastic!) 😂 

Jess found a keyhole Limpet

And a juvenile pelican….

She was approaching the pelican to take his picture, and as she got closer, she realized he was all tied up in fishing line. We called a local wildlife rehab person and asked for help. Basically she told us we could try to get it ourselves, or we would have to wait about an hour for someone to come help us. So Jess decided we would try. The poor thing couldn’t fly and in the process of trying to get away from us would get in the waves and nearly drown. I ran to the car and grabbed a towel and we approached him from both sides at once. He came my direction with that huge beak open and hissing, I hesitated to grab him, but Jess got him from behind. He did manage to get her on her hand with the front of his beak, but it wasn’t too bad.

We then took him in the car to the rehabbed who cut the lines off as we helped and we found at least 2 hooks that were in him, so she was to work at removing them, she told us she thought he would be fine and she would release him soon! How about that for an adventure!! We saved a life today!! 

We headed on down the coast, looking for more adventures….Our next stop was Destin Beach.

The beach had little to no shells but was absolutely gorgeous! We walked for a little bit, took a few pictures….

The clouds disappeared and the sun finally came out, and the water was crystal clear, and a beautiful Green!

We found this beachside restaurant called the Crab Trap and we had a wonderful lunch will looking over the beach! So nice, I recommend it if you're ever in Destin!

We continued on down the coast, passed by Tyndall AFB in Panama City where my Dad was stationed and I went to the 3rd grade, (a few years ago). As we passed by I saw they had 3 of the planes my Dad flew on display near the front gate, it made me pretty emotional, and was really nice to see!  We continued on along the coast thru Port St. Joe, then Appalachacola until we reached the tiny town of Carrabelle. We are there tonight at a Marina Motel looking out over some of the boats decorated for Christmas!

Tomorrow we complete the journey, we plan to skip over the Tampa area (too congested) and maybe hit a couple of beaches between Brandenton and Fort Myers….

Stay Tuned!

~Shelllady Hugs~