North Jetty - Nokomis Florida

The sun lured us out for another mini-bike ride today.  There are quite a few places within 20 or so miles of the house, but one of our favorites is the North Jetty.  There are several cuts where you can go from the Intracoastal Waterway and the Gulf of Mexico.  This one has a long jetty and a park on both sides of the cut.

Lots of people coming out for a day on the beach now that we are fully into "the season".

Looking across the cut to the south jetty, we watched the dolphins frolicking amongst the boats going in and out to the Gulf.

Fishermen of all shapes and sizes:

Most were having success today:

Flounder for the bottom fishermen

Spanish Mackerel

Little Blue Heron

A whole tree full of Pelicans

The Jetty is a great place for looking for shells also.

 





Beaches and Sights of Venice

The south end of Venice Island, FL, is mostly city parks.

The first access to the beach is at Maxine Barritt Park.

Sharky's Restaurant is nestled between two parks and also has beach frontage and a long pier in front of the restaurant.

On the other side of Sharky's Pier 

is the Service Club Park

Where on the 3rd Saturday of every month, Florida Underwater Sports sponsors a weekend scuba dive.  Dunkin' Donuts supplies donuts and coffee for divers and the company logs divers in and pairs them up if they come alone to dive.

So, what they are diving for is mostly big shark teeth, such as this one.  This diver let us hold the big tooth and told us he dives every day for teeth and sells them to tourist shops in town.  

After thinking about it, we went back and asked him if the teeth he had were for sale, and how much.  To our dismay, this one was in the $1200 category.  Pretty and amazing, but definitely out of our price range.  I was tempted to rush back and get my snorkel and mask, but we were on a bike ride, so we continued on.

On our way up Venice Avenue, we came across this amazing Christmas decorative display.

The median had natural decorations - such as these Banyan trees,

and multiple colors of Hibiscus.

The shopping district of Venice has multiple dolphin 

statues, painted in colorful designs,

with turtles also taking their place on the avenue

making it an interesting place to walk.

Since we were in Venice, we stopped at Nokomis Groves,

and had a dish of chocolate/lime swirled ice cream.

Casey Key Motorcycle Ride

It was another beautiful day in SW Florida, so we headed out on the motorcycle.  One of the many beautiful barrier islands along the Gulf of Mexico in SW Florida is Casey Key, about 20 miles north of our home in Englewood.

The road winds along the island with the Gulf on the west and the bay on the east side of the road.  In some places, there are homes on each side of the road, but some of the really amazing mansions sit on  one side but the property bridges the road.  The "gulf to bay" properties are the most expensive of all the very expensive real estate found along the keys.

While the homes themselves are very impressive, the gardens are truly spectacular.

Bougainvilla is a common landscaping feature, and it comes in an array of beautiful colors.

I love how the ivy is trimmed to fill the fence, with the color of the bougainvilla all around.

The poinsettias along the top of this wall give a touch of Christmas landscaping.

The pier park at the south end of Casey Key looks across at Venice Island to the south.  This is one of several openings from the intercoastal waterway on the bay side to the Gulf.

The vastness of the gulf and higher waves are visible most of the way from the road up the key.

Most docks are situated on the bay side of the island.