Fish! Dolphins! Manatee!

Between the perfect weather, the fishing, and the visits from our native marine mammals the Backwater Fishing trip was another successful outing!

This morning Captain Bob II and I took eleven guests fishing in the shallow grass-flats around St. James City. The day started off a little windy with slight gusts coming out of the North West as some small morning thunderstorms rolled by, but luckily we were able to avoid the rain. As the clouds moved off and the wind died down the air and the fishing started to really heat up. Using live shrimp as bait we quickly began catching spotted sea trout, sugar trout, and a few mangrove snapper. Everyone on the trip was able to catch at least one fish including two large keeper sized Spotted Sea Trout and a handful of Spanish Mackerel that were just a hair under the limit. 

While the fish continued to bite throughout the day, the trip was full of much more than just fishing as large pods of Atlantic Bottlenose dolphins and a few Manatees continually surfaced just yards from the boat.

Awesome day today! Until next time.
- Naturalist & First Mate Andrew

Fishin' the Pine Island Sound!

The weather was beautiful for today's fishing trip on "Miss Paradise". We traveled on the shimmering smooth back bay to a secret fishing spot known only by "Adventures In Paradise" captains, where we caught quite a few spotted trout, ( two... really big ones ), some sugar trout, mangrove snapper and nearly a Cormorant.

 

A great time was had by all, and nobody fell overboard. Yesterday, one lady was fishing and somehow lost her bobber; as a result she had to fish the bottom. She landed a 12 or 13 inch Flounder. We always catch fish! And that's no fish story!"

- Captain Bob W. & First Mate Taylor

 

A seaworthy crew today!

Aboard the Miss Paradise on our Sealife Encounter! We caught a ton of stuff in the scoop nets on picnic island. We caught baby seahorses, pipefish, grass shrimp, lots of hermit crabs, mollusks, flounder, pufferfish, blowfish (striped burr fish), and one feisty cat fish! We also learned about the areas habitat forming mangroves, the importance of healthy clean water quality, and the under water prairies, the seagrass beds.

Many thanks from Capt Bob and first mate Josh, and a great job to everyone on today's catch. Also, a special note to young tie-die wearing naturalist in training, Noah keep up the good work and keep taking those Nature classes !

Starfish! Pufferfish! Seahorse!

And Dolphins too! Made for a wonderful day on the Sealife Encounter!

Let me start off by saying that the weather was beyond gorgeous today! Warm, but with a slight breeze that was quite nice as it cooled us off. Cruising out to Picnic Island we passed several Anhingas and Osprey. Captain Bob's fun-fact on Anhingas: They are related to Cormorants but are differentiated by a straight dagger like bill, their swimming posture and their preference for fresh water.

Once on Picnic Island we all had so much fun wading into the water with nets scooping up finds like Pipefish, Hermit Crabs, a Tongue Fish, Starfish and lightning welks. The coolest part about being in the water came minutes later as we saw a large pod of dolphins jumping and playing a mere 30ft in front of us! At that point all interest was lost in scooping up any other sea life. The dolphins put on a good show! (Unfortunately the dolphins would not cooperate for a photo. :) )

Back on the boat Captain Bob explained to us what we found and gave us a chance to hold some of the sea life ourselves! Pretty cool. It was my first time holding a Puffer fish. The Puffer has these spikes but they didn't hurt like I thought they would. Bob says in lieu of escape, Puffer fish use their highly elastic stomachs and the ability to quickly ingest huge amounts of water (and even air when necessary) to turn themselves into a virtually inedible ball several times their normal size.

On the way back to the marina we saw more birds and dolphins. It was a very pleasant day and I look forward to coming out with my family next year! Thank you for an awesome time!

Guest Writer: Courtney from Naples, FL

Perfect weather! Perfect night for a Sunset Dolphin Cruise!

As we boarded, the Schaub family from Minnesota caught sight of a manatee alongside the docks, (thanks to the good eye of local grandson, Austin)! With just a slight coolness in the air we cruised out of Port Sanibel Marina, along Connie Mack channel where guests enjoyed seeing the magnificent homes of exclusive Jonathon Harbour to the starboard side of the channel and mangrove forest port side! Quite a dichotomy that will charm your soul!

Cruising out to the entrance of San Carlos Bay we can see Sanibel Island and many smaller islands in front of the vessel. Looking to our right we can see a long white beach…but what is that which makes the sand so white? Wow…it is literally hundreds of white pelicans that visit our waters every year this time! Such a beautiful sight!

Everyone is excited to see dolphins playing in the distant waters… (with cooler temps we weren’t sure how active the dolphins would be tonight), and the dolphins played not letting us down!
Guests visited with each other, while Captain Bill and first mate Angela pointed out areas of interest relaying Florida Cracker stories to everyone.

Gently cruising to the West, everyone became quiet, almost holding their breath as the sun began to sink from the heavens. The sky became a brilliant reddish orange! We sat quietly wishing this moment would last forever, but the sun began settling down beyond the horizon, softening the colors to a pinkish gray.
The boat did a gentle 360 turn to experience a huge, white, full moon rising! How perfect is this! So many oohs and aahs! This definitely is the perfect sun set to a perfect day!

Thanks you to all our guests that cruised with Adventures in Paradise tonight! We hope your 2012 will be as wonderful as this night has been!