Saturday, February 16, 2013 – Captiva:

            We got to sleep in until the cat demanded breakfast and woke up to a sunny day, although it was pretty windy.  We had breakfast, then took our coffee up to the fly bridge and people watched.  Our friends from up north came by to let us know they were going to rent bikes and ride to Sanibel Island, and we agreed to meet for lunch at the pool bar. 

            Bob and I decided to walk to the island market for some salad ingredients.  The market was about a mile down the road, and there is a nice bike/walking path all over the island, and traffic is very courteous to the bikers and walkers.  The residential homes we passed were beautiful with nicely manicured gardens, but we were surprised to see so many houses for sale.  The market really has a good selection of just about everything even though it is a very small store.  After we completed our shopping we followed the signs to the library and the local church and cemetery.  Most of the headstones on the graves that I saw were dated in the late 1800’s to the mid 1900’s.  The ground in the cemetery is all sand, and someone had carefully raked the sand around the graves and the area all around the church.  I don’t know how the person who was raking will feel about our footprints, but it was a beautiful little place to visit.  The church is a small, white, wood-frame building and the inside was all white also.  My friend, Bonnie, and I are going to walk to the church tomorrow and attend their Sunday service.

The little church 

            After Bob and I left the church, we decided to walk back along the beach.  It was really windy, but the beach was beautiful and full of shells.  There were people scattered around, some walking along the shore, and others braving the wind and sitting in beach chairs.  We collected a couple of shells and then decided to finish our walk back to the boat by the road. 

On the beach

A turtle sculpture on the beach            

            Back at the boat, we put away our groceries and headed up to the fly bridge to people watch some more.  We met up with our friends at the pool bar at lunch time, and we all ordered burgers and beer, which were delicious.  We ate by the heated pool and remarked that it was a shame that the people who had probably paid a lot of money to come to this resort area had encountered this unseasonably cool, windy weather.  It really didn’t seem to me that it was bothering the people sitting around the pool, and the children who were swimming seemed to be having a great time!

Lunch by the pool

            After lunch, Bonnie and I decided to try walking the beach, and the guys decided to get together and talk about (what else?) boats!  The beach was way too windy with sand blowing in our faces so we decided to do something really fun and find the washing machines.  We were pretty successful at finding all the washers the resort offered, and after that we decided to go shopping at the gift shops.  Well, that was pretty exhausting so after that we parted company and went back to our own boats for naps or whatever.  We had decided to make a salad for dinner and get together around 5:00 for drinks then dinner.  As it got closer to 5:00 Bob and I realized that we were still stuffed from lunch and couldn’t even think about eating anything for dinner so we called our friends and decided to just get together for drinks and forget dinner.  Which we did, and after solving all the problems of the world we headed back to our boat, still not wanting any dinner, and wondered where the day had gone.

            It is blowing like crazy outside, and the weather tomorrow is supposed to be colder.  The temperature is supposed to go down to around 39° tonight and not get much warmer than 60° tomorrow.  Yeah, yeah, I know I shouldn’t complain, but good grief, this is southern Florida!  The boat is rocking around in the slip as I write this, but it has been a fun day.

One more note about the cat – she has really come a long way since we got her as a feral kitten almost 11 years ago.  She was actually friendly toward our friends when they came to our boat yesterday, and today, a big, noisy powerboat came into the slip alongside us.  They were making a lot of noise using their bow and stern thrusters to get into the slip, and there was some loud conversation about getting lines around pilings and tying up, but Lucy just sat on the settee and looked out at them with this look that said, “Yeah, I know all about these boats now.”  She really has become an adventure cat.

Let’s hope for less wind tomorrow!

Lena Victoire in her slip in Captiva