July 2, 2008

Day 2 of our July 4th trip

Wednesday we enjoyed breakfast at the island’s restaurant with only a few other families. By about 11:30, the boats bringing folks over for lunch started arriving. I suppose that I should have made those some Kodak moments – oh well, live and learn. Our next stop was Tween Waters on Captiva. It is a short run from Cabbage Key, so we decided to take the scenic route getting there.

This first shot is looking south in Pine Island Sound. The weather did not look to good, but then it is Florida in the summertime.



Here is a picture of the south end of Cayo Costa.



This shows Cabbage Key to the left and Useppa Island to the right. Useppa Island has a bunch of exclusive houses built on some pricey Florida real estate. You can only access it by boat.



Some of the stilt houses in the Sound that survived Charlie. I’m really not sure what people use them for – maybe hunting or fishing. This is true waterfront property.



I'm not sure what happened here, either the Admiral zigged when the boat zagged, or the houses are about to slide off the earth. Either way, I thought it was a funny picture...



We decided to head out into the Gulf to drop the hook and have lunch. Anchored off of North Captiva Island. Beautiful beach here. We thought that we would get some swimming in also, but the weather wasn’t cooperating. Once the thunder and lightning started we decided to stay out of the water.



Here is a shot of North Captiva looking south, with the South Seas Plantation Resort in the background.



Looking toward the north off of North Captiva Island. Notice how much nicer the sky looks in this direction.



With the weather not looking so good, we decided to head in. Here we are approaching Tween Waters – the hotel is the one with the blue roof. Our slip was on the other side of the dock from the sailboat that is in the center of the picture.



Tween Waters is a nice place to visit by boat. The island is only about 100 yards wide at this point, so it is easy to walk over to the beach. They have a nice pool with a tiki bar to hang out at, and they draw an interesting crowd. We had dinner at the on-site restaurant, which was pretty good although a little pricey.

If we had stayed another night, we probably would have walked or taken the boat up to the Green Flash, another restaurant that is about ½ a mile away.