VACATION!!! Sanibel Island Day 5

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!

VACATION!!! Sanibel Island Day 3

After all of the activities yesterday, we weren't sure what we were going to do on this day, but we had a juicy watermelon staring at us, so we ate that while we tried to come up with a plan.

And then we stopped by the pool of course.

We really couldn't figure out much of a plan, so we hopped in the car and started driving.  We drove up to the Captiva-end of the island (GORGEOUS, btw), and then headed back towards the resort.  On our way, we decided to stop by the Ding Darling Wildlife Refuge.  There's a nice museum there that has information on the island itself.  You can either drive through the refuge or walk, and since it was blazing hot, we drove and stopped off at interesting points.

These are beetles.....soooo creepy to watch them move!

This was a very relaxing day, and it was so nice to not feel rushed.  Truly enjoyable!

VACATION!!! Sanibel Island Day 2

Wow!  What a great day (but I'm guessing that the first whole day of vacation always feels this way :)

Izzy, enjoying her donuts with an ocean view....

Joacim was still asleep when Izzy and I woke up, so we decided to let him snooze a bit longer and headed down to the beach.

It was a beach filled with all sorts of stuff!

I have no idea what kind of sea grass this is, but it's pretty freaky looking....like a bunch of strange worms....

A hawk carrying it's breakfast

We found a brochure at the hotel that described a boat outing with a naturalist, and it sounded perfect!  I mean, if we're going to spend the money, we might as well learn something along the way, right?

The boat headed out to Picnic Island, which is a small, uninhabited island in the middle of the bay.  Did you know that the average depth of the bay is only 4 ft????   I was shocked (see...I DID learn at least something!  Money well spent!)

Once we got to Picnic Island, we got off the boat and used the nets provided to search for creatures.

Pretty as a postcard!

Here's a tiny little seahorse that someone collected....it was wiggling all over the place!

She held it!!!  I can't believe it but she DID IT!!!

Here's a quick look at all of the little critters we got to see up close!

This sea slug was pretty cool...it squirted purple ink!!!

Izzy wanted to get her picture taken with the naturalist (Lindsey)!

Wooohoooo!  Dolphins successfully spotted!!!!!!

It was a GREAT trip!  We used Adventures in Paradise Cruises, and I would HIGHLY recommend them to anyone!!!

After the cruise was over, it was back to the pool!

We decided to go off the island for dinner.  I had 3 separate recommendations for Doc Fords, so we HAD to try it!  Needless to say, it didn't disappoint!

I don't even know what the heck kind of mojito this was, but I CAN say that it was damn tasty!

And we had a beautiful sunset as we crossed the bridge back to Sanibel from Ft. Meyers.  What a glorious, wonderful day!!!