Fort Myers FL

Made it to Fort Myers Monday, December 9 after 4 wonder days on the barrier islands of the west coast of Florida.
We spent Tuesday and Wednesday doing laundry, cleaning up the boat and getting ready to travel back to Iowa on Thursday.  Good thing we weren't traveling early Tuesday or Wednesday morning as the marina was pretty fogged in.  A friend from Pella that has a condo in the area stopped by for lunch. Downtown Fort Myers has a lot of nice shops and the Edison Ford Museum to checkout.
We are at Legacy Harbour Marina.
We'll be in Iowa and Kansas for a couple weeks for family and Christmas. In early January we will be heading south down the coast to Marathon in the Keys to spend a couple months.
Merry Christmas.

Four Days of anchorages and beaches

Our travel friends have gone home to Wisconsin and Georgia. We notice Sea C Rider (another Mainship) at the other marina at Venice FL so we Uber'd over to visit with Mike and Pam. It turned out that our travel plans matched going to Ft Myers over the next 5 days to the same marina.
Our first stop was Stump Pass/Beach State Park near Grove City. It was a wonderful anchorage and access to a great beach. We collect a load a shells and had some wonderfull sunsets.
Our second stop was Pelican Bay, Cayo Costa State Park. We stay a this beautiful bay and hike alot on the island and on the beaches, lots more shells. We also dinghy'd a couple miles south to Cabbage Key and had cheese burgers at the restaurant that inspired the song "Cheese Burger in Paradise" by Jimmy Buffet. There was a wonder hike on that island, too. We met another looper couple and had docktales on their boat.
One Sunday we traveled to Captiva and are anchored in the Roosevelt Channel and ate at the Green Flash restraurant.
We  have seen over 50 dolphins on this leg of the trip. Many have ridden Maggie Jo's wake for 15 minutes or longer.
Watch the link.

Cabbage Key Dollars

Cabbage Key Restaurant

I always get the crappy seat in a restaurant.

https://youtu.be/ScsGLwqT7Fk

Life is Good. Onto Ft. Myers tomorrow.

Angie doing snow angels in the sea shells.
Maybe it's a sea shell angel.

Sea Shell Tree on the beach in a sunset.

Sunrise at our anchorage.

St. Petersburg, Bradenton, Sarasota

Traveled to St. Petersburg for a day. Visited a large farmer market with our friends on "Cork Screw".
The next day we went to Bradenton for a couple days. Even walked to a Walgreens to get our Flu Shots, fun.

Tne onto Sarasota where we were parked beside a couple 120 ft boats.
Maggie Jo ( 5th boat down) looked like a dinghy. 

This is the enterance to the Ringling Brothers Musemum, Mansion, and Art Musemum.
Very interesting.

 

There was a  minature circus setup that showed the whole process of moving the circus train, to setup the tents, to the big show, to tear down.

The Enterance to Ringling Estate. Mostly European influence.

No cameras were allowed inside the estate, but the did have a nice circus Christmas Tree in the enterance.

Ringlings collected art and have a major art museum.

Dunedin and Tarpon Spring FL

This was our crossing route.

Dunedin Welcome

Christmas feels different without the snow and cold.

Wonderful Thanksgiving with looper friends in Dunedin FL.

Maggie Jo resting after the gulf crossing.

Fine Greek restraunt in Tarpon Springs.

Morning company, looking for a fish snack.

Dinghy'd over to Caladesi Island State Park to hangout on the Gulf Beaches.

The Dinghy gang.

We aren't in Kansas anymore.

Caught a Sea Trout and ate it for breakfast.