Beach Buddies

The dolphin, the mermaid, the tourist...........must be Florida. Guess who went inside and had the fish du jour right after the photo was snapped?

It's the tourist(s) again.......and the great blue heron. Who looks more dignified? She is waiting patiently for the seafood special to swim by while the others are on the dance floor doing the Captiva Crouch. We are the strangest creatures, aren't we? No wonder the dolphins are always swimming in to take a closer look.

No tourists here. It's nap time; and the locals are dozing on the dock, digesting the catch-of-the-day.

Down by the Riverside

I might have mentioned that we are currently residing on the banks of the Caloosahatchee River. (Hey, if it was good enough for Thomas A. Edison, it's good enough for us.) Looking down from the 13th floor, I noticed several floating objects on top of the water and thought they were leaves..........no....they're not floating........they're swimming. Are they turtles? Not even close.....we were being invaded by a fever (correct term) of stingrays. Yikes! Who even imagined that stingrays inhabited fresh waters? I accidentally sat on one in the Gulf a number of years ago, but both of us emerged from the encounter, shaken but unscathed. However, that event occurred long before Steve Irwin's catastrophe, and before that huge ray collided with and killed a woman on a boat a few weeks ago. They may be deadly, but they are amazingly graceful moving through the water. I'm not sure what brought them to the surface today, but we ran down to the sea wall for a closer look at them. Alas. The little devils were not so easy to see in the murky water at ground level. The photo is from our window.

However, we were able to observe several schools of large fish rushing past on a journey to nowhere in particular and back again. Twas a bit of rush-hour traffic on the river. Actually, the fish were reminiscent of great flocks of birds flying south. You know, those ones that swoop across the sky in undulating waves. Well, these travelers were flying through the water like a gigantic team of synchronised swimmers, and pity the poor stingray who gets in their way.

Birthday Cake

It is the birthday of the world's most adorable, most brilliant, most clever, most delightful, most energetic, most fantastic etc. etc. grandchild. Where are the candles? I know there will be three on the cake, and they will, no doubt, need to be lit and blown out and relit at least three times. (Trust me. I speak from experience on this matter.)

Remember when all of us couldn't wait to be a year older?

Easter

Happy Easter. Happy spring. We saw the Easter Bunny at the supermarket, but skipped the Easter egg hunt in downtown Ft. Myers. I guess all you northern bunnies shivered a bit in your bonnets, but despite slightly lower temperatures, the waterways here were filled with boaters, and the swimming pools were SRO. Just another day in paradise.

Fins & Feathers

Who is there that does not love a dolphin? People run and shout and point and share their discovery. It is amazing to see dolphins swimming and diving so gracefully - no doubt choreographed by Neptune. They are really playful creatures, sometimes rolling over on their backs and batting fish around in the air like a cat with a mouse. Didn't their mothers ever tell them not to play with their food?

Does this look like Florida or what? I love these birds. They are a form of the great blue heron, but since they are white, they are known as great white herons. Clever, huh? This particular beauty was collecting twigs and branches for its nest. A native Floridian told me that herons build their nests above alligator abodes because they know that although they might lose an egg or a chick to the gator, the ugly beast protects the nest from predatory raccoons and such. Tis the balance of nature I suppose. Looks like a good spot for an alligator too.

More of those birds, and that's a pelican wearing the hat. They're everywhere! They're everywhere! Speaking of pelicans.......we witnessed a fish stampede on the river the other day, which totally flummoxed the pelicans. They tried to dive in and scoop up a pouchful, but the fish were just too agitated and flipped and flopped around every which way. The birds finally sat down on the surface and pretended to ignore the frenzy around them. After all, what is a pelican without its dignity?

Take Me Out to the Ball Game

Hey! It's the Boston Red Sox and palm trees in the outfield. Let me tell you, these people are in the stadium to see the World Champions. We were there to see the Cincinnati Reds. Unfortunately, they lost the game, but then, they are not the World Champs. Baseball players don't look as big in person as they do on television (must be the close ups), and no, that is not one of the players standing out in front of City of Palms Park.

Sea Debris

Wow! Look what the Gulf threw up today. It's amazing to think that all of this stuff and a million other creatures are out there living their lives in the deep blue sea. Well, okay......a lot of the time, it's green. The spiral-shaped objects that look like snakes are actually whelk egg cases, and the round prickly ones are sea urchins. The beach was littered with live scallops, mussels, crabs, and cockles (mmmm......dinner), among other interesting finds. I discovered that scallops are bivalves whose two sides might not resemble each other at all. It's as if they are twins who insist on having separate identities and refuse to wear those cute matching outfits their moms have selected for them. I managed to collect a number of empty fragile fig shells (a real find when they are intact), but also tried to rescue likely survivors of other species and toss them back from whence they came. I don't know why I do it, or whether it does any good...... just hate to see them helplessly stranded out of their element. Conversely, I hope they would toss me back up on the beach if I were gasping for air in their milieu. Seriously wonder what brought them all here. Did they decide to go for a stroll on the shore? Did they want to see whether they could make it in our world? Did they go back home at high tide? I know that their presence has something to do with the whims of Mother Nature, but it seems a bit of a phenomenon that so many came to visit at one time.

You are not permitted to take live shells from these beaches because the area has been really overshelled so you can look and touch, but you can't take them home with you........and please don't step on any of our little friends.

A Room with a View

The new digs. No, the building is not listing to the left. It's not the Leaning Tower of Pisa either. Just trying to angle the camera to capture our condo. Alas, failure! The unit's around on the other side anyway...........and thirteen stories up. How lucky is that? I know you're counting the windows.........and, no, the thirteenth floor is not visible; but take my word for it, it's up there. Thirteen out of 27..........right over the Caloosahatchee River. Trust me.........plenty high enough.

Almost ground level, looking out over the swimming pool. Cloudy and windy, but the pool is heated. It's Florida..........nobody comes here to be too cold.

This is the view from the guest room in the condo although it could also be the view from any of the other rooms. That small dot over by the bridge is a sailboat. We're on the river, but with some of the same amenities as being on the gulf........there's a dolphin which comes fishing along the sea wall, and the pelicans flock after the boats that are checking their crab traps. There's no sand, but the palm trees are beautifully tropical, and they are everywhere. After all, Fort Myers is known as the city of palms.

Also on the river and just down the street from us are the winter homes of Thomas Edison and Henry Ford (on our list of must-sees although we ogle their estates when we drive by on our way to the beach). Obviously, we're not the only ones who chose not to spend the winter in AA.

Wish You Were Here

I know! I know! Life can be so unfair. Don't get me started...... While our friends and family back in Ohio are digging out from under the snow storm of the century, we are here in southern Florida frolicking on the beach and whining that the wind has really kicked up. And you all can't even get here because all the flights have been canceled. Sigh.