After I finished typing up my last trip report, Mr M still wasn't back so I decided to walk into town for some fresh bread and milk. it was a lovely day but a bit chilly, so I decided to go get myself a fleece top to keep out the chill. I found a lovely new shop that had just opened it had some really nice colourful clothes in stock, so a new T Shirt, shirt, necklace and hoody later, I skipped off to get the bread and milk, oh and a nice bottle of white that I just happened to find in my basket.[msntongue] Mr M finally got back with the spare tyre fitted, they didn't have our tyre in stock so they had to order one and it should be here next day, so fingers crossed it gets sorted tomorrow. If I had realised how long this would take I would have asked Alamo to change the car! So now can only go short distances and no faster than 50 miles an hour.
After a bite to eat we decide to go and see if we can meet with "sunny siesta key" He is a member of the forum and gave us his address to pop over and visit if we had the time. His business is the other end of the island to where we are staying but only a short drive away. When we got there David was on site so we finally got to meet up. it was really interesting chatting to him and he gave us some maps and suggested places to visit and eat. A really nice guy, I'm glad we made the effort to meet up.
As we can now only stay local we drove over to the MOTE facility - an aquarium and rescue centre. As we parked up we saw a pair of Ospreys nest building. These are such beautiful birds and a pleasure to watch. The male was flying around picking up nesting material and she was bust rearranging the nest. Some how she had a white plastic coat hanger in the nest and was busy throwing it around trying to get it in the right spot, she did look funny with it in her mouth. We saw lots of squirrels running up and down the trees, we sat for a while on a swing seat, they came up very close and didn't appear to be bothered by us at all.
We went first into the turtle and dolphin aquarium. This facility rescues wild animals, nurses them back to health and releases them back into the wild. Any animals that can 't be released they keep in the facility. they had too massive logger head turtles, I didn't realise how big these animals grow, plus several smaller species of turtle too. The volunteers are very informative and happy to answer any questions about the animals. They also have just one bottle nose dolphin in a pool by him self, apparently he too was a rescue and isn't well enough to be released back into the wild, however keeping him on his own didn't seem like a good plan to me either, he looked very lonely I did wonder if the kindest thing would have been not to rescue him at all. By now, after all the time spent messing about with the car, it was 5pm and the facility was closing. We took David's (sunny siesta key) advice and called into the Salty Dog for a drink. A really nice bar/restaurant on the waters edge. It was lovely catching the early evening sun and watching DOLPHINS, finally I get to see some real wild dolphins, a pod of about 6 fishing for their tea.
We went back to the unit for a quick wash and change and brief walk to the hub for dinner. the location of the unit is ideal, we are about 4 mins walk to town and 5 mins to the beach. Normally when we are in the states one of us is driving so being able to walk is a treat and both of us can have a drink. We had a very enjoyable meal of beef burritos and Tacos washed down with several cold budwisers. There is live music every night and Wednesdays nights it is a guy called Marcel, he plays guitar and sings. he has a lovely voice in the style of the Eagles / Bread. He sang a lot of really old tracks including Hotel California, a track we love, so a very enjoyable night was had by one and all !
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Nice report Diane.
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