Odds and Sods

As the title suggested, this will be an eclectic bunch of photographs, all made on Sanibel Island.

Our rental unit is in a fairly quiet area of the island, a good distance away from shops, restaurants and tourist areas. We walk to the beach and have access via a public access path. On the way there, we've watched this house getting the attention of all the usual suspects like painters, decorators, landscapers, etc. Not a stick of furniture yet!

New houses in Sanibel must have their entrance 10.5 feet above sea level. Some builders make a very big deal of this, after all, you only get one chance at making a first impression, right?

Note that there are a couple of masons, busy installing and adjusting the stones on the balustrades.

As you enter the driveway, you see the above through a slightly different angle, as shown below. This is a very different 'first impression' don't you think?

A week and a half ago, the landscapers arrived with truckloads of plants: everything that you see here, except for the line of trees at the neighbours, was planted in the last ten days, and there are still many pots to go, as well as some bushes, etc. Virtually an instant landscape.

Here's a view of windows on the main level, 10.5 feet above sea level.

The palm tree you see above was one of the many planted recently. What a difference landscaping does to a building site.

People shelling aren't the only ones on 'our' beach: this heron was just standing there, feeling the breezes, and checking the chicks...

Away from the water's edge, the shells are usually pretty broken up. Here they make an even backdrop for this five armed starfish.

Of course, no seaside would be complete without a fine selection of sea gulls, and other water birds.

Here's Peter holding a Welk egg casing. The casing can be close to 2 meters long and in made up of little round egg-cases, each containing up to 20 live shells, each joined to the next casing. It takes the Welk a few days to make this string of eggs which can contain as many as 20.000 live Welks and the food necessary for their development. Magic or what?

On one of our drives to the neighbouring island, Captiva, we encountered these birds all in the shade. I must admit that we were kind of hot too.

Another drive brought us to these two horse sculptures. Brings a whole new memory for wooden horses.

Restaurant decor varies a lot: some windows have a great view, other windows are the great view.

Here's another restaurant where windows have a view.

This is after lunch, looking back at the restaurant. We sat in the tower on the right side of the main building.

Walking to the beach, we saw these pelicans in this Australian Pine tree.

And this was the view on the beach behind the restaurant. Lots of broken shells here too.

And now, another question for the grandkids. Jacob and Eric got the last photo challenge: upside-down kayaks, and kayak paddles, good for them. I've played around with these two a bit, but you still should be able to figure them out. The first is actually in one of the photos above, and the second could be part of another picture above, you'll have to let me know.

The best hint is look down for one, up for the other... Good luck.

Tomorrow we head off to Grayton Beach while Chris, Peter, Cragen, and Chance head back to New Brunswick, back to Winter.

Sanibel Stoop, Market day

At the East end of the island, near the Lighthouse, this tree is quite photogenic, in my humble opinion.

One has to realize that it's really winter here, mid-February, when trees should be dormant. This guy is definitely awakening and will provide welcome shade later in the season.

One of the big events for Sanibel this year was an attempt at getting into the Guinness Book of Records by having at least 500 people participate in the Sanibel Stoop; one of those postures required to look for and find local shells. Since we were already well practiced in this art form, we registered and participated.

Here's the line-up to sign in after registration, a long line-up where Joan saving me a spot, in the far background in the blue shirt [click to enlarge].

After the line-up we qualified for our 'T' shirts, which we are now proudly showing off.

And the reverse side:

The hope was to get at least 500 people to participate so that we could qualify for the Guinness Book of Records. I'm not sure wether we qualified or not, but 500+ people is a massive group to control...

After about a half hour, the helicopter arrived and the signal was given: we were all to stoop in search of shells in the local posture known as the Sanibel Stoop. Most tried their best, but there are always a few that need to photograph or look to see what's going on.

I assure you that I was stooping as I made this picture, honest!

After the Guinness attempt, Sunday rolled around so it must be market day!

Here's a neat way of keeping hydroponic lettuce healthy: the water is pumped in from the left, drains through the lettuce, then returns to the tank where the pump recycles the water back to the top. Clever way to display the lettuce too!

I've always enjoyed kettle corn but I've never seen it being made. Here's a guy stirring the corn in a super heated large kettle.

After most kernels have popped, they are dumped onto a counter, salted, stirred, and packed into bags for sale,

Here's something neat, water soluble crystals for plants. They come in various colours, absorb water which leaches out slowly over a few weeks, then the crystals can be re-hydrated to repeat the process. How neat is that? A small finger sized vial can fill a salad bowl when hydrated. We saw this concept being used in Grayton when they were planting thousands of sea oats on the dunes.

Here's our group heading out [Peter is holding the purchases!].

Markets and such have many hand made signs, one of the many interesting ones was this one: imagine the greens from a 'weed' being worth more than common 'organic' lettuce.

Later on, we went shopping and this fountain caught my attention. Note well shaped natural fig tree in the background.

Shortly after that, the volunteer came to clean the fountain. Imagine my surprise at the colour co-ordinated equipment and uniform.

After a little shopping, we went to a very good restaurant for lunch. Here we are enjoying ourselves just before the bill showed up.

Here's a little gecko doing its spring thing. Look carefully and I'm sure you can find this well disguised fellow. You can click on the image to enlarge it.

Hope you enjoyed our adventures, more to follow sometime soon.

Off island then Sunset on Sanibel Island

Off island means Publix, banking, gas stations, Outlet stores, and an orchid place.

The only way off Sanibel is this gorgeous bridge / causeway. The causeway is a great venue for fishermen. Here's one, hip deep, trying his luck, with the bridge in the background.

We met Bob Busch at the Sanibel market garden and also at a small orchids display at one of the local merchant areas. His orchids were much better than average, and Bob shows up at the market garden in spite of cold weather and big winds, even though sales might be minimum. He invited us to visit his greenhouses and today we did.

This is the showroom of orchids in bloom. Quite a show.

Here's a close-up of one of the showy Cattleya orchids in glorious bloom.

After some shopping and gruesome stuff like that, we returned to Sanibel and left for the beach to enjoy a sunset.

As usual, a few shells will be picked and shared with a quick show and tell.

The sky was getting ready to give us the spectacular palette of a sunset.

Even the shoreline becomes quite magical during sunset.

Of course, the main event is where the sun sets.

Here's our little group, libations in hand, at the magical hour of sunset.

Cragen wanted to stay in the water and have a little more fun.

What a life for all of us. I hope you're having fun too.

Touring Sanibel

When Chris and Joan go for their almost daily shopping, Peter and I often drive around to see different parts of the island.

We went to an adventure type of store that rented boats, sold boat tours and that kind of stuff.

The next picture shows one of the many Osprey Platforms found throughout the island and in nearby Fort Meyers. Ospreys seem to flourish here and seeing them fish is quite a sight.

On the left are directional buoys leading to the local dock from which the boat tours operate.

On the right and in front, most of the greenery consists of mangroves; a natural way to increase useable land.

Here's a small island slowly being formed by the spreading mangroves. You can see the mangrove roots that trap the sand to 'make' extra land. Mind you, in Florida, they also drain swamps to 'make' and sell land, but that's another story.

I'll let you figure out the next two pictures, maybe the grandkids can let me know what they think...

The only hint I'll share is that both pictures were made at the same location, plus I've already given you a much better hint above...

The pictures above were shot yesterday, which was Saturday. That means today is Sunday, time to go to the weekly Farmer's Market.

Here we are, bundled up for the 8ºC [43ºF] weather with high winds. This was the coldest morning for Joan and me so far this year!

We didn't do the usual stroll through the market, just a very quick buy and run.

This afternoon should be just shy of 50ºF and tomorrow should return to above 70, with 80's promissed after that.

I had mentioned in an earlier post that our alligator was recently released and that she was the only one on the island: the newspaper was wrong since there are many alligators on the island. Earlier in the week, we had two sunning themselves on land just across from us. So far, we've heard the snap of their jaws in the water two or three times. We don't know if lunch was being served or not, but we didn't hear any thrashing in the water afterwards, so maybe it was just a very quick yawn. ...or do alligators sneeze?

Sanibel Farmers Market - Captiva

The weekly Farmers Market is held on Sunday on Sanibel Island. It's a well attended and interesting Market. Most people were carrying bags of fresh produce.

The first thing that caught my eye was this Boiled Peanuts sign, a reminder of the worse peanuts we've ever eaten. I guess it's an acquired taste that neither one of us has any interest in acquiring. Of course, your mileage may differ so we left you lots!

As with most markets, there were all sorts of vendors and people everywhere you looked.

There were two or three flower vendors too.

Of course, the farmers' produce offered good deals, were beautifully staged, and I'm sure almost everything would sell.

The bane of such markets can be the 'non-growers', the people that just truck their recently bought wares into the market, having had nothing at all to do with its growing.

This is a truckload of orchids and other plants. priced at $20 for the near table. They were priced on pot size, not scarcity, quality, or any of those other fancy criteria that might require some thought or knowledge. Ok, I'll get off the soapbox now, and leave my rant for another day. Just remind me...

At one end of Sanibel island, there is a lighthouse; at the other, a bridge to Captiva. By all accounts Sanibel is expensive, Captiva is much, much more expensive. The houses are closer to being palaces. A few touristy stores, no grocery, fuel, hardware, or box store anywhere! Really!

While this next picture was not made on Captiva, it could have been. One of two lovely wood sculptures of horses. This was in someones front yard with no parking nearby, so I just did a stop, left the flashers on, and snapped quickly. Maybe next time I should dare go into the laneway, ask permission and make a decent shot. For the time being, this will have to do...

Ah yes, Captiva. We ate outside, under the red awning and had a decent meal. We had to move inside when the rains came since the awning had to be closed.

Most dog-friendly restaurants allow the dogs outside only, but under the circumstances, Cragen joined us inside.

You're probably thinking that is could not possibly have rained hard on the same day the above picture was made but it did rain, and rained hard within the hour! The rain lasted about 15 minutes or so and the sun returned about an hour or so later.

Since there is virtually no parking on Captiva, it's not much of a place to do anything other than just drive through. I haven't figured out how to get pictures of the great houses or their stunning gardens. Maybe later on during the month.

This morning, Chris and Joan left for the beach at 7 am. I slept in, but apparently, there were hundreds of shellers, harvesting the gifts that the high tide had left behind. They came back with a bundle of choice shells. Peter went off to play golf, so at about 10 am., I walked down to the beach [about a 10 minute walk].

Here's a view looking South, and you might be able to count a dozen people in the few miles to the horizon.

This is looking to the North, again, very few people. All this to say, low tide was shortly after 7:30 or so, and nobody shells on a rising tide.

Florida law forbids live shelling, i.e. harvesting shells that are still living.

Sometimes, there is some event that brings all kinds of live shells to the beach; today it was the Fighting Conch, and here's a picture of a group that will likely be saved by the rising tide. Each shell is from 2 to 3 inches long and can be pale or quite dark. We all managed to find many dead ones to collect.

The birds here are so accustomed to shellers, that they quite often just ignore you completely and let you just walk by. Here are a few Ibis with their curved beaks, digging in the surf and shore for small things to eat.

There are lots of shore birds around, including sea gulls. They seem to segregate by type when grouping to just stand on the beach and sleep. I just walked past half a dozen such groups, sometimes less than a meter away, and they didn't even move away a little bit. The ibis above were a bit more cautious with about half of them flying around me, and then continuing down the beach.

Even if the time of day was wrong, there were still lots of treasures to be found either on the beach or in the surf. All in all, about a dozen of 'keepers'.