englewood – Dina's Wildlife Adventures

While Brett and I were on our staycation on Manasota Key we took a boat ride/dolphin tour one morning. The boat wasn’t full since it was a little chilly so it was nice to have room to move around. We went down the intercoastal and out to Stump Pass to get out in the open water.

We passed several boats that were still stranded from Hurricane Ian and Hurricane Idalia. Ian (in 2022) did a lot of damage in the area. They still hadn’t fully recovered and Idalia came by (in 2023).

We passed an adult and a juvenile bald eagle that were sitting on a spit in the middle of the water. Looks like Junior followed Dad down to see how to get a drink of water (or catch a fish?). A little farther down we passed the nest. One adult was sitting in the tree. Thinking this is Mom.

As we made our way out of Stump Pass we could see dolphins swimming around nearby and lots of pelicans diving for fish.

This one had a big fish in his pouch.

We saw so many dolphins. Some were swimming right up against the boat and I couldn’t fit them all in and some were far out. It was a fun morning just floating around watching them come up for air.

On our way back we saw a handful of white pelicans napping on a spit.

We went in a few channels and this was a common sight. Many of the docks were still waiting to be fixed. The cormorants were taking advantage of the dock pilings not being used. Eighteen months after Hurricane Ian hit there were still a lot of roofs still covered and a lot of construction going on. One of the restaurants we ate at on the water had just recently opened back up after being closed for over a year. The waitress said everything in the restaurant was brand new.

Brett and I had a week long staycation in mid-December. We drove 2 hours south to Manasota Key, a barrier island off Englewood (south of Venice, Florida). We rented a old condo right on the beach and spent the week just hanging out. We got down there too early to go to the condo so we took a long walk next door at Stump Pass Beach State Park. The weather was mild, around 60 degrees, and we had the park almost to ourselves.

Someone had made a shell tree.

On the beach side looking towards town. It’s weird seeing an empty beach. The shelling was pretty good and I came home with a jar full of shells.

We hiked down the beach and then back up the backside of the barrier island.

When we got to our condo we spent some time just chilling on the beach.

We were going to have an early dinner but I told Brett we couldn’t leave until sunset and I’m glad we waited. This was the only night we had one. This was the view from our condo.

As the sun went down I ran out to the beach to shoot the above with my phone.

This was taken from our living room.

We spent some time reading on the beach and went for long walks. We went on a long dolphin tour but more on that later.

One morning we drove up to Venice and walked along Caspersen Beach, know for a good place to find shark teeth. There were many people here with sifters looking along the rocks for them.