Day 57 snorkeling at Cayo Costa

     We departed Cabbage Key about 10:00 am rather than staying for lunch since the Admiral was ready to dingy, snorkel, etc. Not a huge new experience, but we backed away from the dock with the dingy tied closely to the stern. Once again, no problem. We motored a few miles north to a channel near the end of  Cayo Costa, which means "Costa Island" although it is "just another barrier island like the others that are called "keys". We had been here before on Day 54 when the generator would not start after we had anchored. This time the generator started right off although to be perfectly honest, we had test started the generator before leaving Cabbage Key...

 After lunch, a nap, and a short wait for a rain cloud to pass, we took the dingy to a sand spit near the entrance channel. Yeah! First time snorkeling on the trip. Our enthusiasm for snorkeling at this spot was somewhat dampened when after a few minutes, a large "head" surfaced briefly about 25 feet away... We did snorkel for a while but very close to shore! We did see it once more but were not able to identify what it was.

Lucky Us (shown here) is anchored in an area protected by a narrow band of mangrove islands along the eastern shore (landward side). After the snorkeling event we took the dingy around the band of mangrove islands. Wow, there were ospreys all over. We counted 12 in (tall, dead) trees and saw another one dive into the water and catch a fish. For me, I saw my first osprey ever about 20 years ago, and in Texas we have regularly seen one in a day of travel, especially along the Houston Ship Channel. However, in the past couple of weeks I have seen more ospreys probably than ever before combined. That is a real treat! 

  I realize that this picture is not that impressive, but it was taken with a wide angle lens from only about 100 feet.

It may not sound like a very exciting day, but I had a great time. Tomorrow we plan to head about 16 miles south to an anchorage near Captiva Island.

Note: There is a tropical storm in the tropics (Chantal), and we are using many resources to watch her closely.  We have booked 4 nights in a marina in Ft. Meyers as a normal/planned part of our trip, but this time period will also bracket the times that Chantal is supposed to be going up the east coast of Florida.