Okay, so here is my end of the bargain…

Just south of Venice Beach (west central Florida) is a small beach on Manasota Key named… well, you guessed it, Manasota Beach. It is one of the few beaches left in Florida that has free parking. It’s a wonderful little spot that is known by locals (who are probably mad at me for telling you about this) with the distinct charm that the old Florida beach’s have to offer.

Here it is, Manasota Beach

Beautiful white sand, lots of seashells, calm surf… It’s what I really love about living in Florida. No high-rises or blaring traffic noise. Just a nice beach.

There are public restrooms and a place to change clothes. It is an amazingly short walk from the parking lot to the beach. Bring the kids and the metal detector for a little added fun.

The teeth are easy to spot once you develop an eye for them. They like to hide among the numerous shells that are there for the taking as well. The shells can make some very pretty decorations in the home, only limited by your imagination.

Here is the mixture of shells and teeth, is this great or what!

Just start poking through the shells and sand. You will start to find the teeth easily after a little bit. One of the best times is after a good blow from offshore. New material has washed up and is ready for sorting!

Told ya, just a short walk to the beach.

This little pile took about an hour to gather.

There was even a bonus quarter here which can be applied to the purchase of a really great book!

So, get digging and start your collection of fossilized Florida shark’s teeth. Then click on the book link and get yourself a really great novel to take to the beach with you the next time you head out for some teeth, or just a relaxing day on the beach.

Once you finish the first novel, let me know what you would like to see in the sequel. I’m about halfway through with it and our hero is into some pretty exciting stuff. Then maybe, just maybe… I’ll tell you where to get the shrimp!

MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM!!!!!!!

Here’s the book link!

http://www.southerncrosses.com/book/

Back in the water where I belong

The surf God is presently angry on the west side of Florida. I know, all you guy’s who live in big water land are looking at my huge surf photos and calling me a sissy. Yeah, well… I’m rubber, your glue-

The Gulf of Mexico has been known to look like a lake on many days. We usually have a very gentle breeze in the morning coming from the east this time of the year. That means flat calm water, which is nice and clear. We usually don’t have the vegetation washed up on the beach either.

It’s easy to tell when the wind and surf is up. The folks with the windsurfing boards show up and appear to be having a great time. I’ve got to keep an eye out for them to keep from getting my head ran over. Sometimes in the surf I’m shoulder deep and just have my head bobbing up.

St Pete beach

When the water is clear I’ve seen Manatee’s swim by, dolphins, and even a shark or two. Sting rays are here most of the time, but the coil of the detector usually runs them off before I step on one. Which, by the way, I’ve done in the past.

I was walking in the surf one time and had my foot yanked out from under me. I tumbled into the water as it was only in knee deep. It took about sixty seconds for the intense pain to begin. It felt like someone had made a slit up my leg with a razor knife and poured a salty lighter fluid solution into the gaping wound and subsequently lighting it afire.

It truly made me, a grown man, cry like a baby.

Just a pretty view of the rough conditions

I suffered like a baby for the next hour until I was in the ER at the local beach hospital. The first thing they did was fill a janitors mop bucket (after removing the dirty mop, it is a hospital after all) and with steaming hot water. My foot was shoved into the water and the most amazing thing happened…

Within thirty seconds I felt the intense burning of the sting ray poison subside. The pain vanished as my foot began to boil like a stunned lobster. A red foot was worth the lack of pain.

I stopped crying.

The lesson here…

Yikes, the big wave... (waterproof camera)

1. Find the hottest water you can. Get it from a coffee pot, the exhaust from the outboard engine, a nearby restaurant, anywhere. The hotter the better.

2. Soak foot.

3. Go to hospital.

4. It’s okay to cry.

Anyhow, I’ve spent time in southern California, and that water is ice cold all year. Big waves and gooey oil stuff in the sand. The Gulf however, is presently at 88 degrees and the sand is usually clean with a fine sugary texture. It’s a pure joy to hang out in the surf, usually. The water today is choppy, cloudy, and just a bit rough. I suppose we have to take the less than desirable on a rare occasion to truly appreciate the wonderful beach weather we have here most of the time.

The scoop shaft is supposed to be straight

I’ve decided to do a little more beach hunting to see what the tourists have deposited in the way of cash and treasures. I’ve managed to collect a few coins and highly valued pieces of scrap aluminum pull tabs when I bent the scoop.

My beach scoop is pretty strong, and should have withstood the massive waves I’m encountering this afternoon, but alas… all is not well in paradise. I had dug it in to start scooping up treasure when a wave got me. Yep, one of those massively HUGE west coast Florida waves. Well, that put an end to the scoop. It bent and is no longer a working beach scoop; it’s simply a hunk of pipe with a basket on the end.

I’m not sure if I’ll be able to get this one fixed or not. It may be time to stimulate the economy and buy a new one. In any event, I lost the treasure I was digging. I’m positive that last target was the 3ct. diamond ring I’ve been searching for.

The mighty beach hunter in action

I’ll just have to keep coming to the beach and searching, over and over and over again. Agonizing… but someone has to do it.

It may as well be me.

A windsurfer on the way by

The water-boy

The busted scoop

Here comes the boss, time to explain how I broke something again

So I hit to beach today with my Infinium in search of famed golden treasures. Jewelry shopping if you will…
We got to an area that had a lot of vegetation washed up and contained within was a ton of plastic crap. There were zillions of sunglasses and swim goggles. I saw one guy walking away with a couple of swim mask’s. There were also handfuls of sunglasses.
Plastic crap galore, and a ton of can slaw. There was so much slaw in the area it was impossible to hunt with the tector.
Anyhow, the family female command center boss directs me to unload the tector and start poking about the seaweed for cash. She apparently is pretty good at spotting US mint green concealed within seaweed green.
We come up with $25 in cash. The grandkids have swim goggles for life, and everyone we know is getting a pair of sunglasses for next Christmas.

It's cash!

Found this ID bracelet too. I called the number on the bracelet and it seems that the owner is training for a triathlon and lost it swimming last Wednesday. I’ll drop it in the mail to him.
I found a nickel with my detector… Put in my place once again~

A little worn, or laundered?

Beach junk

Road ID tag... returned to owner

My brain contains a rather odd collection of moments, most of them I truly relish.

I’ll share some with you, take a moment out and enjoy!

I woke up and stepped out to this view. The colors of the water are so vivid they are beyond the capabilities of my camera. Birds are stirring and hopping among the palms as the morning breeze begins to pick up, the smell of tropical oceans gently waking me up to another exciting day in paradise.  Sheree is rustling about and steps out onto the balcony to join the early morning splendor.

My brain starts playing one of my favorite songs…  Lucky, by Jason Mraz…

So we step out onto the beach. The waves have left a clean flat spot of wet sand for us to leave our mark. The footprints won’t last long, but they were there. However briefly in island time, it’s proof that we were here!

So now the discussion begins… is it a head or a coconut? What if it’s a real head, maybe crabs ate the face off and were having… steak for dinner tonight. How long has the head been here? If we report this and it’s just a coconut we may not be allow to order any more mixed drinks… It’s probably a coconut. Yep, just a coconut.

So lunch time rolls around and we find this non-tourist restaurant off on a side street. This is the kind of place I’m after. It’s going to be a place where I can practice my limited Spanish. My proficiency is gauged on what we actually ate for lunch -vs- what I thought I was ordering.

I did manage to discover that I had made a grievous error when I ate some of the ‘mild’ sauce I ordered. It was either that or our definition of mild is a bit different than the locals. In any event I suspect there were some folks in the kitchen laughing wildly as the Gringo ingested the ‘mild’ sauce…

Oh well, my contribution to world peace…

After eating the ‘mild’ sauce I could simply turn around and pray for redemption…

So we headed down the coastline and found this wonderful place. It’s a very nice and affordable hotel on the beach. We walked around and enjoyed the view. We were compelled to sit and enjoy a couple of adult beverages as island time slipped past.

Cool and refreshing…   now, back to the beach.

Island time, yeah  ~just lay back and relax~

I’ll upload some more photos as soon as I can get my brain back into civilization mode. It’s not an easy thing ya know…

There is not much to this story, nothing really new, or too terribly exciting. It’s my way of mentally escaping every now and then. Sometimes I can actually make it to the beach, sometimes I have to do the ‘zen out of body experience’ and just look at pictures.

1600's Nautical navigation chart

In any event, I’m going to the beach now. The sights and sounds are amazing if you slow down long enough to take a look. Most of the beaches I’ve found are terribly crowded. Some however, are amazingly desolate for being so close to civilization. I much prefer the desolate beaches. They are mostly the ones I have to get to by boat, during everyone else’s work week.

We were walking along on Anclote Key one day and found this little crab in a shell. He appeared to be doing nothing more than idling away his day waiting on the tide to come back in. He was in no hurry to go anywhere or do anything. I envied the crab a little. So relaxed and peaceful, well, until I came along and disturbed him.

The beach I’m on has been here literally hundreds of years, and has changed only little. Hurricanes come and go, shorelines shift and change, but this is like it was in the 1500′s. I found a nautical chart at the Library of Congress that showed Anclote Key as an anchorage for the explorers back then. There is a little anchor symbol in just about the same spot I anchor at. (Click on the chart for a closer view, look near the upper center) French, Dutch, English, Spanish, everyone that had a chart stopped here. It was listed as having fresh water up the Anclote River, along with game and fruit.

No hurries back then, just basic survival. It was without question a tough way to live, hunting your food down in something other than a grocery store isle, where gasoline prices determined what your tomato cost. But then again, they didn’t have to worry about failing economy’s, what to wear to work that day, or why did my retirement fund simply vanish.

They spent a lot of time on the beach. Here was most of what they needed. Fish, oysters, clams, and inland was the fruit, deer, and fowl.

I stand on this beach sometimes and try to wonder what the early explores felt when they looked upon the unspoiled land of unlimited opportunity. Spanish Galleons simply used this as a stop over point to replenish their fresh water and food stores while transiting from Cuba to Mexico and back. The native Indians looked at the odd people and were happy when they sailed on.

Waiting for the tide to come in

I’ve anchored my sailboat in the same place they anchored their wooden ships. Sailors of that time only knew a compass and the sun for time and speed. I have a GPS that keeps me within a tenth of a second, and 7 feet, anywhere on earth. I don’t know if I would brave the journey they did, even with my wind generator and solar panels. It is remarkable what the explorers accomplished, especially considering what they had to work with. One such visionary stood on this beach over 400 years ago. He looked at the same stars I am looking at, he listened to the same relentless surf washing the shore I hear today. We were both barefoot. Many years have drifted into the eternity of the cosmos. Many souls have pondered the past and the future from this beach. They were brave indeed, and here they stood, in the very same spot I am today. Perhaps he was looking at a crab, just like mine.

To preface the story, about two miles offshore from Apollo Beach is a small spoil island called Pine Island that the locals affectionately refer to as Beer Can Island. On the weekends, it is very popular with recreational boaters and takes on a kind of carnival atmosphere. During the week however, the masses of young, useful, productive denizens are conspicuously absent and Beer Can Island takes on the persona of a remote deserted South Pacific island located right here on the East side of Tampa Bay.

Beer can island

It was on one of these weekdays that I dropped the sails, headed up, and dropped anchor right in the little bay on the East side of Beer Can. I was pleased that I was the only boat and person in sight. I was also pleased to have placed the anchor so that I was in no danger of going aground, yet was only two boat lengths from the beach. This was shaping up to be an awesome week.

Upon referring to the Ships Standing Orders issued by the Captain (me), when anchoring close to shore, the crew (me) is required to perform an anchor watch for the first several hours to verify a good anchor set. This is accomplished to the accompaniment of Jimmy Buffett music blasting from the cockpit speakers while the crew attempts to rehydrate following the brisk activity of getting the sails secured and the anchor down and set. Rehydration is accomplished through the use of various liquids, all of which are very unpalatable, made potable by adding copious amounts of Sailor Jerry Spiced Rum.

Anchor watch duty was almost over when I decided to go out on deck and straighten the foredeck up a bit. I’m not really clear exactly what took place, whether the boat suddenly lurched, or if the deck was struck with an eddy in the gravity field, but I found myself falling, although not toward the center of the boat. Frantically, I grabbed the un-cleated jib sheet which provided a degree of support which could only be detected with sensitive scientific instruments. I noticed how pretty the sky was just before it disappeared, being replaced by the blurry murky underwater world of Tampa Bay.

Did I mention to you folks that I am an overweight, relatively inactive, and a retiree??? Luckily, I’m still a fairly strong swimmer. I came up spitting and sputtering with what I would imagine was a very surprised look on my face. With the keen situational awareness of which I am gifted, I quickly swam the four feet to the side of the boat. What now? I reached up but couldn’t even come close to reaching the deck of the boat. The smooth hull offered nothing to hold onto. I swam down the side of the hull to the familiar ladder that I had used to board the boat from many times. It was resting securely out of reach. I continued around to the stern where the dinghy is stored. From there I can use a step which is mounted on the transom to hopefully step up onto the deck. Well, a partial solution was achieved. I could reach up and grab the step! No problem, from this position I could hang onto the stern of the boat for three or four days if I needed to. It probably took my alcohol impeded mind longer than it should have to reach the conclusion that this wasn’t all that great of a solution either. I finally let go and swam completely around the boat looking, but not finding a solution of how to get my derriere back on board. By now I was getting tired and the island was beginning to beckon me. I swam till I touched ground and then slogged ashore dropping face first in the sand, half in and half out of the water.

I don’t know how long I lay there but when I pulled myself up onto my hands and knees, my hair and beard had grown out and I looked just like Tom Hanks. I started assessing my situation and completed a mental list of what I needed to do. First, find a source of fresh water. Second, build a shelter. Third, create fire. And finally, find a source of food. In my spare time I’ll map out the island, gather all my resources, signal for help then locate and befriend a soccer ball.

So much for plans. What I actually did was walk around the island picking up pretty shells and sand dollars. I splashed around and played in the water. But what I spent most of the day doing was sitting in the shade of a pine tree looking at my boat anchored serenely and stately just off the beach out of reach. One thing Tom Hanks didn’t have to deal with was being confronted with a boat full of iced beverages just waiting to be consumed. A large steak was on the ready and prepared to sizzle on the rail mounted grill. All that food, television, a shower, a nice clean bunk, there it was, all in plain sight just out of reach.

Walking a beach

Neither Tom Hanks nor those young pretty people on survivor had to worry about the humiliation and embarrassment of being rescued and answering the inevitable questions that I was faced with. My wife, my friends, even soccer balls would disassociate themselves from me. The shame would last longer than the years I had left in me. It would turn out that I would be saved from all this by my brilliant, cunning innovation and cleverness.

I saw my chance when a pontoon boat rented from MacDill Air Force Base pulled up with some partying young folks with close cropped hair. My plan materialized as I watched them playing on the beach. As they began loading up preparing to leave, I sauntered over and acting like it didn’t really matter one way or another, asked them if they would save me the swim back out to my boat by giving me a lift. They were happy to oblige, and my ordeal was over. That night I dined on fresh grilled steak and sipped my favorite adult beverage to the happy beat of island music. I can assure you though that the boarding ladder is now down, as it always is, as soon as I get anchored.

What lessons can I leave you with?

Always deploy the boarding ladder as soon as you get anchored.

Try to get marooned on an island that already has a soccer ball in residence.

Be prepared to make up a lie that will cover any ridiculous situation that you might put yourself in.

Never go out on deck with your cell phone in your pocket.

Fair winds and following seas………………Nat