Saturday, January 31, 2009

Life's A Beach.

We left our hero at the car park of the Outrigger Beach Resort on Ft. Myers Beach on the west coast of Florida. There, we're all caught up now. Let's continue...........

First of all, here is an aerial view of the pool and tiki bar area.  Well when I say aerial, I really mean a shot taken from the 2nd floor of the hotel's south complex which looked remarkably like the north complex on the other side, being that it was all part of the same hotel an' all.  Whatyawant ? A helicopter shot ?!! 

You can see that the staff had cleared all the snow and ice away and so we were left with a rather nice area for sitting out with our friends. Ok time for a spot of work for you all now.  

Enlarge the photo and look for the woman resting in the water at the side of the pool.  Got her ?  Go to the right a little, past the 5ft marker on the pool and move up a tad. Pick the white pool lounge chair that is lying flat (between the sunbathing man and the empty raised lounger).  Ok ?  Move up the pool fence until you see someone wearing a white t-shirt sitting under one of the tiki huts.

That's Debby !!  Wasn't that fun ???  Oh please yourselves.  It's Saturday for goodness sake; what else did you have to do ?


To the left of the photo was THE beach and the following 2 photos show just what a glorious beach it was. I love palm trees that have that yellow, almost golden colour to the fronds and there were plenty of them on the beach close to the hotel. Sadly the best views had me up against the tiki bar fence and so I wasn't able to get all of the trunks in the shot but you'll still get the idea.



You can see the wooden fence I'm talking about in the 2nd photo and I was standing up against it when taking the first photo.

After we had a meal with the friends from Michigan who were staying at the hotel, they left to go on a boat trip and we went off onto the beach to walk out to the water and this was the view looking back to the hotel.


Although we had brought swimwear, we really didn't have the time for a dip as we had shopping to do in Ft. Myers. So Debby contented herself with walking along the waters edge so she at least got her feet wet. Dennis walked with her on the sand and muggins here was all over the place taking photos of anything that moved.....and in the case of this marine chelicerate arthropod, the occasional thing that didn't move.


This was my first up-close-and-in-your-face experience of a Horseshoe Crab and what a freaky critter is was. I say 'was' because I dropped several pebbles on it but it never flinched. Joking, people, joking. Anyway I think it was only it's shell and it was off somewhere skinny dipping for the tourists further along the beach.

From the one that got away (maybe) to one that definitely didn't get away. This tiddler was caught before my very eyes and it was funny to see the man's friends gather round with their cameras taking photos of this monsterous catch. I told him I'd make sure and photoshop the beast to make it look more impressive but good as it is, photoshop can't perform miracles.


As usual there were flocks of birds on the beach and they would scatter and regroup anytime someone passed close to them. I didn't notice what type they were until I looked at the photo later and I sent a copy of the shot to my feathers expert, Daphne. I've warned her about her dress sense but does she listen ? No.

I was particularly interested because of the very long beaks on some of the birds. Daffy said they were Black Skimmers and they fly low over the water with the lower mandible (ohhhh get me) skimming the water for small fish and crustaceans.

I tell you, this blog is just so freakin' educational I sometimes glow with pride.


And that was pretty much it for the beach. We had to go shopping to Sams Club but as we left, I took one last shot, looking north. Not bad for January 28th.


I'd certainly recommend Ft. Myers Beach to anyone visiting Florida and one final tip : use the Outrigger Beach Resort car park as it's huge and no one ever checks if you're a guest there. You'll have to pay to park just about everywhere else !

The educational info just never stops.

4 comments:

Daphne said...

I hope your readers will click on the photos to make them bigger as they look even more glorious (sighhh). Also you can see the birds better and their beaks are amazing - I thought they must be going to a fancy-dress party at first. I am off to see how many conversations I can drop "marine chelicerate arthropod" into now.

rhymeswithplague said...

I've never been to Ft. Myers Beach, but it looks FABULOUS....

Debby said...

A good day was had by all.

Glorious pictures.

Unknown said...

Oh boy you have made me miss the sea and beach more than ever. It looks stunningly beautiful there. Very nice pictures as well.

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