For our last full-day in Sanibel, we took a Captiva Cruise to Cayo Costa, which is an island that's accessible only by boat, north of Captiva. This was, most definitely, the highlight of the trip.
The driftwood "sculptures" (remnants of hurricanes) were worth it all by themselves!
And they were also useful as bag holders :)
The sun was so ridiculously intense, and the sand so white, that it was nearly impossible to do anything without a hat, sunglasses, and lots of sunscreen ;)
This photo below is straight out of the camera. It was THAT beautiful! I think we all would've loved to go swimming, but there was a pretty significant sand shelf about 3 feet beyond the beach, and the surf was pretty rough and constant right there (we were on the gulf-side of the island). Also, being a barrier island, the water isn't really all that clear as it's full of broken shells.
You can see how the water would change colors...from deep blue to an turquoise to almost lime sherbet.
This is the boat that ferried us back and forth. It was a shallow, 2 hull boat that allowed for easy beaching.
Family selfie!
We got back to our room and made a hodgepodge dinner with the remaining food that we had and started to pack up. After sorting through all of the shells that we were planning on keeping, we all headed out to the beach one more time to put the rest of the shells back, and sort of "say goodbye" to the lovely island. We were really happy to see that it was low-tide when we were there...no idea how we missed it the whole week, but really wish I would've seen how shallow it truly was, and for how far out from the beach. Anyone who knows me knows I'm...well...terrified of water that I can't see the bottom of (i.e., lakes, ponds, rivers, oceans...pretty much everything except pools and hot tubs ;). Knowing how shallow it was would've helped. Anyway, walking along the sandbars we started noticing all of these sea snails, and sea "worms". We got kind of excited because most of the shells we'd collected were small, and a little battered, but sadly for us, most of these bigger spiral shells were occupied by some pretty pissed off sea creatures :)
I loved the trails they made...
Izzy found a lot of shells that looked recently abandoned, and were still hooked together.
And this hawk was so amazing to watch. It was flying so low...hunting.
Just, seriously, and amazing adventure that day!
