Sanibel Island Day 2

Today's post brought to you by Lauren (with input from Matt).

Today we got up at the crack of dawn to go on a snorkeling/dolphin excursion. It was worth the early wake-up call because we saw tons of dolphins! I was nicknamed "Lauren the dolphin spotter" because I found the first two pods of dolphins on our way out to Cayo Costa. Our captain, Captain Jack of the "Salty," did a great job. He would pull around to where the dolphins were and they would play in our wake. We got some great video and pictures of the dolphins porpoising behind the boat. (Matt says, "Shouldn't it be called 'dolphining?'")


When we got to Cayo Costa we went snorkeling. The visibility wasn't fabulous but we had fun anyways. It was Matt's first time snorkeling. We got to play with some underwater scooters too, which was super fun. We may have gotten some video of coral, but we won't know until we can download it to the computer. I also got a quick kayak fix in. We would highly recommend Sanibel Island Cruise Lines...great trip. On the way back to shore, Matt spotted the third pod of the day.


The early morning and the sun and saltwater and the snorkeling led to a glorious midday nap back at the hotel. We then headed back to Sanibel for dinner at Matzaluna which had wonderful Italian food and one of the best margaritas I have ever had. Even though it was starting to storm, we headed to the next island over, Captiva Island. We stopped for some shopping but most stores were closing up since it was Sunday evening. The weather wasn't conducive to picture taking but we enjoyed the scenic drive in the rain. We also discovered where they keep the rednecks...(the arrow could probably be pointing in all directions).


We then headed towards the lighthouse end of Sanibel to get ice cream sundaes at Pinocchios. Matt had the "beachwalk" sundae which was made with Pinocchio's signature ice cream, "dirty sand dollar". I had a mud slide.

Tomorrow we unfortunately have to leave our vacation spot. We may stop at Mote Marine Lab in Sarasota on our way back to reality...can't hurt to see a few more dolphins and manatees and maybe a sea turtle or two.

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Sanibel Island Day 1

We got a little bit of a late start this morning, but made it to Sanibel around noon. We drove around for a bit looking for a good place to have lunch and came across a little place called the Over Easy Cafe. I had a grilled cheese with bacon and Lauren had a turkey club. It was really good. It reminded me of a place you would see on Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives on the Food Network. Actually, most of the restaurants on Sanibel look like a place you'd see Guy Fieri at filming an episode.




Next we headed over to Tarpon Bay Explorers where we went out on a little boat tour of Tarpon Bay. We had a very funny and knowledgable guide named Captain Dave. He pointed some bird rookeries, where we saw pelicans, cormorants, a reddish egret, and some plain old white egrets. We also saw 4 manatees. Two mommies and two babies.



Next we headed over to the J. N. "Ding" Darling National Wildlife Refuge to take a tram tour through the park. Along the way we saw osprey, yellow crowned night heron, more egrets (reddish, great, snowy, not so great), roseate spoonbills, a great blue heron, a little blue heron (no medium blue heron), and a red shouldered hawk. There were also plenty of the unofficial Florida state bird, the mosquito. Lauren is convinced that there were also some no-see-ums, but I didn't see any.



After the tram tour we headed over to the Blue Giraffe for dinner. I was disappointed though, because I was really looking forward to trying some giraffe steak. It seems they were out. I settled for plain old cow steak, and Lauren had Filet of Sole with some Crab and Lobster stuffing. We also had dessert. Hot fudge sundae for me and Key Lime pie for Lauren.

We then headed to the Sanibel Lighthouse around sunset. It was beautiful watching the sun set in one direction, and then turning around to see a giant thunderstorm rolling in. We managed to snap some great pics before it started raining though, so it was a successful excursion. We managed to make it halfway over the causeway before the rain hit us.




Stay tuned for tomorrow's post... We're going snorkeling and hopefully dolphin watching.

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