Back to Fort Myers Beach
On the second to last day of the vacation we decided to return to Fort Myers Beach. We had enjoyed it before, and it was close enough to the last place we wanted to visit (the Edison/Ford) house, and we were not disappointed by going back.
As this was now the week of Xmas vacation, there were suddenly three times as many people every where we went. Some of them were industrious and creative enough to build a lovely sand mermaid.
I just HAD to get back in the water, so I gave my dad everything but my camera (and swimsuit) and splashed around a bit.
This willet was swimming around pretty far out for a sandpiper.
We ended the evening there and headed into the incredibly crowded Monday night streets. No pics of our ramblings there, so let's pick up from the next morning, back on the beach.
I'm not sure if I'm sorry I missed stingray season.
These olive snails were chugging along pretty quickly in the low tide. These are predatory snails in the genus Oliva.
The inverted letter C at the bottom is an olive snail's trail in the moist sand.
Waders, like these ruddy turnstones, were picking through the low surf for stray invertebrates.
These boat-tailed grackles would like you to believe that they are some kind of sandpiper.
Nine-armed sea stars were scattered all about. This one had lost and regrown most of its arms at one point or another.
This one was nicely intact. I dug it out of the sand to photograph it and set it down, whereupon it immediately began burying itself. A pic I took with my phone of this animal half buried between my feet is my current facebook profile image.
Another sea snail, a small whelk or relative, festooned with barnacles.
A sandwich tern and two laughing gulls, all in their inconspicuous winter plumage. Later these birds will grow black feathers adorning their heads.
This bivalve and its barnacles were all empty, but I thought it was quite pretty.
And then in a truly "holy shit!" moment I saw a dolphin in the water. Like with the manatees earlier I shot 5 million photos but didn't manage a better image than this one.
You can almost see the dolphin's head, but...
As I was running back and forth, flailing my arms to catch my dad's attention and trying to photograph the dolphin, this snowy egret calmly walked in the surf.
Others watched the dolphin with a more reserved interest.
Thanks to the Sea Gypsy, where we stayed the night and (for the first time on the trip) had way more space than we knew what to do with!