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The
Wayfarer Midwinters of 2005 |
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Tuesday,
February
1st: Next
morning it was back onto I-75 past Sarasota and
Fort Myers to ... |
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| ... the
islands of Sanibel and Captiva, the Mecca of this
pilgrimage. At a quick stop at their lovely, warm Welcome Centre ... ... |
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... we got
their brochure and set about exploring the home of
one of our favourite
fictional mystery heroes, Randy Wayne White's Doc
Ford, a marine biologist with a murky
past who lives with a charmingly weird cast of
characters in the
fictional Dinkins Bay on ...
... |
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| ...
Sanibel
Island. In rummaging through the brochure, Marc
had cleverly discovered
a bar ... ... |
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| ... named
for our hero, and of course, we had lunch and a beer
there. ... |
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| Naturally,
we had to buy some Doc Ford souvenirs, two shirts
each, and Marc completed his Doc Ford collection with the three books he did not have yet. ... |
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| The author
is Randy Wayne
White. ... |
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|
One of
Randy's
books being centred around the next island up the
chain, Captiva, we of
course had to visit that, too. Folks informed us
that Captiva had looked
a lot better before last year's hurricanes, but it
still
looked wonderful to us, and we decided to splurge
and stay one night ...
|
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| ... at the
rather posh - for us - Tween Waters Inn, right
... ... |
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| ... on the
Gulf of Mexico and ... ... |
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| ... and its
... ... |
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| ... lovely,
almost hot, beach. ... |
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| While Marc
went for his usual long walk along the beach, Al
lounged in the sun and
watched two surf anglers ... ... |
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| ... at
work.
Hard to believe that such a narrow neck could swallow
whole, a fish
that had to be ... ... |
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| ... at
least a foot long and four inches in diameter!! ... |
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| Less
hungry-looking now, the heron remains on the alert for
possible dessert
as Marc returns from his walk. ... |
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| Marc's
reconnaissance had paid off with his finding the Mucky
Duck. Not wishing to tax Uncle Al's heart
condition, we drove over - at least a kilometer! - and were soon enjoying more warm sunshine and a cold beer. ... |
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We had
noticed - oddly enough - this trio earlier when
they became the only
ones to actually swim in the extremely cool Gulf
waters. What
Midwinters report could be complete without
pictures of bikini-clad
lovelies on the beach?! So Uncle Al decided
another view towards the
north was called for, with our trio in the
foreground to add some local
colour. It turned out that they were all on a
one-day pass
from their jobs at Dwyers, an Irish pub on
Route
41 in Fort
Myers.
... |
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| They
invited us over for a beer - the first of several.
From left to right
are Cathy, Dick and Dervla - the latter two being
Irish, from Wexford,
and sad to be having to leave the sunny US South to go
back home to
Ireland after two years here. ... |
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| Naturally,
we needed proof that we hadn't made the whole thing
up, so Dick -
albeit a bit wobbly on his feet by now - obliged. ... |
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| Lucky Dick
in his choice of travelling companions, one might say,
but ... ... |
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| ... can
they roll tack and fly a spinnaker like this man??? ... |
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| Al was
still steady enough to capture this sunset before we
went back to Happy
Hour at the Tween Waters followed by supper at - where else! - Doc Ford's Sanibel Rum Bar & Grille. ... |
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| Wednesday,
February 2nd: Rumour (and
the weather channel) had it that the Lake Eustis area was getting seriously cool rain today, and even Captiva ... ... |
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| ... felt
more like a cold, drizzly day at the Warm Water
Regatta on this morning
at the Tween Waters. ... |
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| Still, it
turned sunny and warm as we stopped ... ... |
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| ... where we
thought Dinkin's Bay might be on our drive back to the
mainland ... |
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| As promised the day before, we stopped off to briefly visit Dick, Cathy and Dervla (above with Marc and Al) at work, before stopping for the night in Sarasota which impressed us mainly with its high prices. Marc would later remark that the evening's steak dinner, wine and beer at the Outback Steakhouse in Sarasota cost us nearly $100, almost twice as much as a similar but tastier dinner cost us at Logan's Roadhouse in Macon, Georgia on Super Bowl Sunday during our dash back home so Marc could get back to his "beloved" work. |
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