Boat day!

Today was my turn at the helm of the Good Time Charters tour boat. The boat runs out of Snook Bight Marina, the most modern, beautiful marina on Ft. Myers Beach, with a marvelous top notch restaurant called Bayfront Bistro. You've got to check it out and be sure to try James' sushi!

My day started with a Marine Life Adventure! This is a private charter featuring a 4 hour boat ride with various activities for our guests to include dolphin watching, bird watching, shelling, kayaking and a session of netting for marine life in the grass flats of Estero Bay. Cristina identifies every species that is collected in the nets prior to releasing them back into the wild.

Our guests arrived right on time and we had a great surprise for them to get the day started on the right foot! Right across the dock from our tour boat were four large manatees and a calf. The calf was nursing on his mom.

The infant nurses under the front flipper similar to how a baby elephant nurses under the front legs of the mother! The elephant and the manatee are somehow related in that family.

So, off we went, on a warmer day, but still darn chilly for us Florida-blooded creatures. I had on a short sleeve tee shirt under a long sleeve tee shirt under a polo shirt under a sweatshirt under a fleece vest. I also had a stocking cap and gloves! Oh well, it's still better than last week. Our guests were from Canada and they said it was zero there!

We had a great time on the boat ride to our shelling destination, stopping occasionally so Cristina could point out and identify a species of bird.

We arrived at the shelling island and I landed the boat and secured it while Cristina readied the guests to debark the boat for their beach walk. After a successful shelling walk, two of our guests and Cristina jumped aboard the kayaks and went for a paddle while I relocated the others to a new shelling location.

After both parties reunited, we loaded equipment and people back on the boat. Our quest was to find some dolphins to cap off our day!

We were not doing real good finding dolphins but after cruising the bay awhile we spotted a couple. Then Capt Mike, Cristina's husband and co-owner of the business, gave us a call on the VHF radio from his fishing charter boat and pointed us to another pod of dolphins. They seemed playful enough and after a few minutes we were watching them play on our wake! I never get use to seeing those smiling faces staring up at me as they glide just beneath the surface of the water, as they skim the waves up and down.

That was the icing on the cake, ending our adventure. All that was left was the cool ride back to the marina. A good journey. A good day!