Marco Island

What a delight to meet up with good friends for Thanksgiving!  Doug and Shelley were spending the week on Marco Island and invited us to join them for the holiday. Since RVs are not allowed to stay overnight on the island, we were glad to find a guy named Bruno, who let us store Darby (the RV) in his fenced parking lot (three side by fence, fourth side by gator infested waters).

We all stayed in a house together, rode our bikes around the island, worked on a puzzle, swam, and enjoyed good company. It was a first thanksgiving away from family for both of us and delightful to share in it together. Spending the day at the beach was worth the resulting slightly dry turkey. 

Sea turtles nest on the beaches in southern Florida, and Marco Island works hard to protect these turtles. Shockingly only 1 out of 1,000 turtle babies will make it to adulthood!  Their natural predators are raccoons, birds, crabs, and the a myriad of marine creatures. Once they grow to adulthood they have virtually no natural predators, other than an occasional shark attack. Humans, however, have increasingly become a greater threat to the species.  Attractive shells, used for jewelry and luxury items, is no longer legal, but the black market for these is still alive. Habitat loss due to both development and beach erosion are also threats. Entanglement in plastic bags or fishing lines, marine pollution, and beach activity are all ways that humans have impacted the turtle population. 

The friend whose home we stayed in has a deep love for these turtles. Not only is he involved in groups to protect them, but he raises them in his backyard. The kids were delighted to "get to know" these turtles who were not afraid of humans. They fed them kale, gave them names, and took selfies with the turtles. 

A special adventure out to Tigertail beach meant crossing a lagoon to Sand Dollar island. Wading up to our waist in murky waters while our toes squished in silly mud was a little unnerving, but the reward on the other side was worth every nervous moment. 

Shells as far as the eye could see. 

The north end of the beach appeared to dead end in mangroves, but a little path through the mangroves took us to a quiet white sandy beach where only those looking for solitude would go. We went. There were more shells, a sand dollar tree, a horseshoe crab and a beautiful view. 

Since we were in a land where coconuts grew, it made total sense to drink out smoothies out of them. 

Nearly everyone goes to the beach to watch the sunset. Because this!

Our time together was just perfect. 

When we asked the turtles to take a photo of us, they were happy to oblige. 

Shark teeth

Before we left Minneapolis, Jackson had a conversation with a docent at the Science Museum about fossils. The kind gentleman drew a map of where we would most successfully find fossilized shark teeth on the beach. Jackson had been obsessed about it for months, and we finally were able to follow that map to the "x", Caspersen Beach, just south of Venice.

We were mesmerized by the warm sun, the rhythm of the waves, and fingering handfuls of white shell-filled sand. And we found shark teeth!  A handy little sand sifting shovel was really helpful for getting a big scoop of the shelf, sluicing our the sand and leaving behind a scoop of treasures.

Caspersen Beach is known as the "shark tooth capital of the world" because of the phosphate rich formations underground that are continuously exposed by the Peace River, depositing fossils onto the beaches in the Venice area.  Shark teeth are numerous (sharks can loose over 10,000 teeth in a lifetime!), very dense and fossilize easily, so these teeth could be anywhere between 11,000 year old to 2.5 million years old!!

We stayed all day, watching the sunset. This was a day right out of the book of dreams.

Gulf Islands National Seashores

“I must go down to the seas again, 

for the call of the running tide is a wild call 

and a clear call that may not be denied.” 

(Poet John Masefield)

As soon as we had set up camp we made a mad dash for the beach before the sun set.  The kids ditched their shoes and went right for the water. This is looking towards the naval yard across Pensacola bay. 

The bay side was fine, but we really wanted to check out the gulf. By the time we crossed to the other side of the campground, it was dark, but the white sand glowed. The kids squeeled and commenced to wave jumping. Up to their knees at least. It was barely warm, upper 50's and super windy, but they didn't care. They had been anticipating swimming in the ocean and weren't about to delay any longer. 

After a ghost crab came out of the water they began to think about all the other unseen creatures of the sea and decided to hold off more swimming until the morning when the nocturnal creatures  wouldn't be pinching toes.

Gulf Islands National Seashore is a collection of historic forts, campgrounds and trails, a little strip of land running parallel along 160 miles of the southern coast. It stretches from Cat Island, Mississippi to just east of Fort Walton Beach, Florida. We camped at Fort Pickens, just south of Pensacola. 

The park had just reopened after the ripple effect from hurricane Patricia dumped seven feet of sand into the shore. The roads had been cleared of the white sand and were reminiscent of North Dakota in the winter. We felt grateful to have timed the trip when we did because this park was breathtaking!  

We woke to temperatures in the 40's, so we opted for afternoon swimming and a bike ride to the fort in the morning. But not before peek at the shore. It was straight off a postcard!

Fort Pickens was the largest of four forts built in the early 1800's to protect Pensacola bay from foreign attack. Ironically, it's only real action was during the civil war. It was the only Union fort in confederate territory, and the fort was held for the entire civil war by Lt. Adam Slemmer. Some historians say these were the first shots fired in the Civil War. Its really a fascinating story, you can read more about it here.   

The bike trails took a sheltered path between the gulf and the bay, bordered by a marshland of sea oats and beach grasses, pine trees, heathers and a native mint that resembles rosemary. 

The afternoon trip to the beach was worth the wait!

This sweet man and his wife were also on their first RV trip. They purchased their RV at the same time we got ours. Then he became sick. The entire time we were renovating our motor home, he was struggling to stay alive. He had travelled the world with the army and as a civilian, and now looked forward to seeing more of his own country, grateful to be alive. 

We were alone on the beach. 

Kids swam, but we weren't brave enough. It was 70 and sunny during the day but super windy! It wasn't the balmy temperatures we were anticipating, but come on guys!  It's white sand, a beach to ourselves.  It's Florida.

For the first time in twelve years we celebrated our anniversary on a glorious beach!  

Claire invited me on a sunset walk to the beach.  This was a no brainer, but it reminded me of the many times she introduces me to something new, points out something I didn't notice, or challenges me to try something i never would have thought to try.