Boca Grande and the Dolphins

On our way down the ICW towards the island of Boca Grande, we were again surrounded by pods of Dolphins swimming along side, behind, in front of and under our boat, just like they did towards the end of our crossing of the gulf. Regardless of how many times they appear, we never get tired of watching them frolick in our wake. We are usually traveling around 10 mph when we see them and they are just idling along, since they reportedly can swim up to 30 mph.

Sara was able to capture two excellent videos of the Dolphins swimming with us, but these still pictures will have to suffice for our blog.

It seems that if they are being "talked to" or Sara slaps the side of the boat with her hand, that the Dolphins have more of a tendency to jump out of the water as they are swimming.

Webster's dictionary defines the dolphin as a small whale and in this picture it looks very much like one with the dorsal fin and blow hole plainly visible.

Many times as the Dolphins would swim by or jump they would turn sideways so as to look at the person looking at them "eye ball to eye ball". You have to wonder what they are thinking of us!

This shot was taken looking straight down off of the swim platform on the stern. They like to swim close to each other as well as the boat!

We found Boca Grande to be one of our favorite quaint little communities we have visited on our journey. The island is only seven miles long and a mile or two wide, with one bridge to cross to enter or leave. We rented one of the marinas golf carts for our day and night on the island and drove around town and up and down the length of the island checking things out. (Yes Cindy, we stopped at the "Loose Caboose", but not to eat. It was the only place I could find my USA

Today newspaper).

Our "selfie" headed down the Golf Cart Path of Life😃!

The privately owned and maintained golf cart paths are beautiful, extremely well maintained and can take you almost anyplace on the island without traveling on the streets, which you are allowed to do if you chose too.

Sara at the wheel while enjoying her little ice cream cone. She is good at multi-tasking!☺️

While cruising around the different neighborhoods looking at the beautiful homes and just enjoying ourselves, we came across this little house that was For Sale, so we stopped to check it out. It was not occupied and looked brand new, even though it was in one of the older neighborhoods. Since we didn't have anything else to do this afternoon but enjoy the beautiful Florida weather, we called the listing realtor and asked if we could see the house. He was in the area and was there in less than five minutes to give us the grand tour. We learned the house was built in 1959 and had been given a complete reengineering and design renovation from the ground up in 2013. The renovation included removing walls, raising the roof, all hurricane resistant doors and windows, all new, top of the line appliances, floors, lights, etc., etc. The entire house had been redesigned to bring it up to strict standards of the ADA (Americans w/Disability Act) with absolutely no steps, wide doors both interior and exterior, and many other features. The house was just over 2000 sq ft, with three bedrooms and two full baths and just a two car carport.

Sara and I both really liked this house and had a serious discussion about possibly buying it and making it our Florida home. After all, it had almost everything we wanted in a smaller home, it was in a beautiful community, and it was only a couple of blocks from the beach. THAT WAS UNTIL WE HEARD THE PRICE!    $895,000!!!!  The realtor thought it was a good deal because it had just been reduced from $1,099,000!!!

Sara and I decided we would keep looking.

One of the more interesting streets in Boca Grande, called Banyan Street.

It's not hard to see how it got its name. All the trees are young banyan trees.

We have stayed in some very nice marinas on our journey, as well as some that were pretty rough and rustic. Boca Grande marina is one of the nicer ones.

It accommodates 75' or 100' boats just as easily as our 42' ITHAKA.

That's ITHAKA pulled up behind our 75' neighbor.

Towards sunset we hopped in our trusty golf cart and drove out to the south end of the island to have dinner at the South Beach Restaurant and watch the sun sink slowly into the Gulf of Mexico.

It was a crystal clear evening with absolutely no haze or clouds or buildings to obstruct our view of the horizon.

I had told Sara about the "Green Flash" that it is sometimes visible for a mere instant as the sun dips below the horizon, but she had never seen it for herself. Until this evening! Though it was not caught on this picture, we saw the brilliant, neon green flash for that split second as the sun retired for the night. It was an amazing sight!

........and so ends another day on the beach.