Tuesday, Jan. 29, 2019

The trip from Sarasota to Boca Grande was chock-full of signs noting “Manatee Zone, SLOW SPEED, Minimum Wake” which were often accompanied by mangroves on one if not both sides of the channel. Sometimes we were required to move at idle-speed producing no wake, and other times we could drive at up to 25 mph in the channel, but only a minimum wake if out of the channel. (Since we usually travel at a max of 9 – 10 mph, we could go max speed there!) There were also signs that indicated various speeds or type of wakes allowed during different times of the year, for example, “SLOW SPEED Minimum Wake November 1 – April 1, or up to 25 mph in the channel the rest of the year.” With the variety of signage, and sometimes small lettering, we carefully viewed the information with binoculars and adjusted as needed.

Sadly, we did not see any manatees, but we did see quite a few dolphins. Have you ever tried to take a picture out of the side-window of a moving car? Sue almost invariable gets the picture of road signs, tree trunks or telephone poles rather the distant scenery, animal or sunset she is trying to shoot. Her success (or lack thereof) has continued with her attempts to catch dolphins. There were two dolphins right in front of our bow, so she lifted her phone’s camera higher than what she could see on the screen hoping to get at least one picture of them.  Yes - there were two good shots of them! Unfortunately, both had the canvas strip (that goes around the strataglass opening) exactly where the dolphins were! UGH!

There was also one bridge that had to open for us along the way that was a swing bridge (see photos). The operator sat in an operator’s booth off to the side and had to walk to the middle of the bridge to open it. As we traveled, we saw numerous large homes with screened in balconies, porches and pools. Fortunately, we are not having bug problems (yet) but with the screening we saw, we imagine that it could be an issue in the warmer part of the year around here.

We made it to the beautiful Boca Grande Marina around 4pm then had a lovely dinner at Miller’s Dockside restaurant – everything was delicious! After preparing for our departure the next morning, we called it a night.