Day 28 on Captiva

Fri, Mar 3
 It is hard to believe that March is here which means we only have 2 weeks left on the island and that Cecilia will be going home tomorrow. We hate to see her go. Coffee this morning with whatever you wanted. The weather is cool...in the 50's.  We went to see Don and Lillian Stokes talk at DDNWR center at 10:00 but left at 9:00 to make sure we got a good seat...sometimes the room fills up quickly and some get shut out. Lillian and Donald Stokes are well-known in the birding and naturalist worlds, the authors of many books. They also author a popular birding blog featuring Lillian’s photographs of birds, butterflies and landscapes. On Friday, they covered topics of making better photographs by knowing your camera and of bird identification.  She is really selling Canon new camera SX50.

 

We went to Sunset Grill for brunch at about 11:30. Cecilia and I both chose Banana Nut Bread French Toast.  It's interesting how much we like the same foods.  Al had two buttermilk pancakes and two eggs served with sausage. 

After eating we drove up to the end of Captiva Island showing Cecilia some of the sights including The Bubble Room, Andy Rosse Drive, Mucky Duck, Chapel by the Sea, Captiva Cemetery, etc.

 

 We saw our friend Mike at the sight of the house that he is building on Captiva Drive on the beach  and stopped to say hello. 
After returning to the house, Cecilia worked on packing some shells for her grandson and packing for her return home. Too windy and cool to go to the beach again.
We had a casual dinner at Lazy Flamingo at 5:30 at the bar. Our timing was good because the place became crowded shortly after we arrived. We had some oysters and the usual fried food and shared among us.  Cecilia's chicken tenders were a bit dry...make note to pass in future. It is hard to believe that Cecilia leaves tomorrow....seems like she just arrived.  Sorry her last dinner was not the best.

Day 27 on Captiva

Thurs, Feb 28
Another cloudy day...where is that sun????
We had breakfast of mushroom omelet with bacon, toast, grapefruit, and orange juice on the porch.  It seemed a bit warmer today.
 We decided to visit the eagle's nest today.....Margarethe told us that one of the eaglets has left the nest and was seen on the ground. When we arrived at the nest we saw only one eaglet sitting on a branch of the Australian Pine Tree but the other one soon joined him/her. The one eaglet seemed to be encouraging the other one to fly.

The sun finally came out and it was warm enough to head to the beach.  We gathered our chairs and towels and to the beach we went.  Not many beach goers out today or birds. But it was sunny enough to enjoy the gulf.

Tonight we had 6:30 reservations at Traditions on the Beach.  The host of the restaurant is Andrea Mucciga whom we have know all the years that we have been coming to Captiva.  We have followed him from Bellini's on Captiva to Riveria, Dolce Vita, and now Traditions all on Sanibel.

Andrea and his wife with Award

 

It was great to see Andrea as always.....his places always have the best entertainment .....some musicians have been working with him for years.
We started dinner by sharing  PRIME BEEF CARPACCIO-Hearts of palm shavings, rugula,
reggiano, lemon EVOO drizzles ...not as good as I remembered.  I shared a salad of greens and  artichokewith a shallots-balsamic vinegar with Cecilia. Al had the Julius Caesar salad.   He ordered Veal Chop with sautéed chanterelle mushrooms and brandied-creamy veal pan demi,     Cecilia ordered Grilled Scottish Salmon with asparagus, roasted garlic, ciboulis, vino cotto white wine fusion. I had Crab Cake with creole spiced jumbo crab meat withsautéed, red bell pepper remoulade. For dessert, we shared  Amaretto crème brule with a caramel crust.  Andrea treated us with after dinner cordials.

The best part of the evening was music by Joe McCormick and the vocalist, Marvilla Marzan. She has a beautiful voice.  I think Cecilia really enjoyed the music and entertainment.

Marvilla on the left and Joe performed.  Barb on the right performs other nights.

Day 26 on Captiva

Wed, Feb 27

Cecilia and I spent another early morning at the beach collecting shells... even better today.... and not as cool. Found a lot of olives and more variety.  Photo on right shows most of what we found.


This morning Al had a massage with his therapist at 10:00 and Cecilia and I used the time to shop at the Tahitian Gardens.  I bought Jacob and Hannah "Life is Good" tee shirts for their birthdays and some cute books. Cecilia bought Hannah the cutest pink cap and Jacob a book about seashells. She also found a box for a treasure chest for him to hold seashells. Their birthday party themes are Pirates for Jacob and Princess for Hannah. Her gifts will tie into their themes. 

We manage to shop most of the stores before Al met us for Brunch at the Sanibel Cafe.  Al had his usual lox and bagel platter. Cecilia and I both had the quiche special of the day served with hash browns.

Then we shopped The Brown Bag (a men's shop) where Al bought a pair of shorts and a shirt. And we also shopped the remaining stores.  Our next stop was Tarpon Bay to see what was going on there. This is the place to go for canoes and pontoon boat tours of DDNWR. Here we saw some Ruddy Turnstones, Osprey, and Piliated Woodpecker.  Not any birds on the water or islands.

The skies were too overcast and cloudy to spend time at the beach today.  It did rain late afternoon so no sunset to see. We decided to go to dinner about 5:30 to Doc Ford's which usually have call ahead seating but we found out they no longer do that starting today.  We had a 40 minute wait but it was worth it.  Once seated, we started with oysters which we shared. Cecilia and I had to have the Mojito.

 Cecilia ordered Cedar Plank Salmon-freshly cut salmon filet topped with a mango chipotle glaze, served with au gratin potatoes, wilted spinach and caramelized mushrooms-which she shared with me.   Al had  Panko Fried Shrimp - with french fries and cole slaw. I ordered the Calamari Salad - lightly battered calamari tossed with mixed Everglades greens, cucumbers, tomatoes, a sweet and sour vinaigrette dressing, topped with crispy wontons. I shared the salad with all.....  

Day 25 on Captiva

Tues, Feb 26

Cecilia and I went out at 7:00 to check for shells....after heavy winds and rain, we found some great shells but we had to be careful not to pick up live ones. There were a lot of live conch shells. We also saw a lot of dead fish because of the Red Tide and we had some coughing spells caused by it. We were all by ourselves and had all the shells to ourselves.

After coffee and pastries, we drove to DDNWR for a drive through the reserve. There seemed to be more white pelicans and ibis today but feeding seemed to mostly finished at the time we drove through.

 

 

 

 

For lunch, I made mussel salad sandwich with last night's left over mussels adding mussels, remoulade sauce, and lettuce  to buns.  This made great sandwiches.

Since the weather was not great, Cecilia made a card using my supplies. She did a great job since she had not made a card before. To check out her card see the post on my blog.

 

Tonight we went to Timbers for a seafood dinner.  Cecilia ordered the Oysters Rockefeller- oysters baked with seasoned spinach and cheese and we ordered Flight Oysters on the half shell for appetizers and shared. For entrees, Cecilia had Captiva Crabcake  served with dill sauce. Al had the Triple Shrimp Platter-scampi, baked stuffed, and crunchy. I had Baked Stuffed Shrimp with seafood stuffing.  We enjoyed salad or clam chowder  with sides of steamed vegetables and baked sweet potatoes.  It was a great dinner.

Day 24 on Captiva

Mon, Feb 25

We arose early enough to go and view the sunrise on the bay from the dock.  There were not many birds on the islands in the bay but many were flying over. Photos of the rising sun:

We have not seen many roseate spoonbills at DDNWR this year but we did see one lone roseate feeding at sunrise this morning:

We all then walked over to the beach to see if anything was happening. As we approached the eagle's tree, we all spotted the eagle sitting on a low branch on the tree.....we had not seen it as close to the ground before. I was glad everyone got a good look because as I walked further down the path I must have scared it off because he suddenly flew away.  Not much seen on the beach...looks like another cloudy day.

We had breakfast of scrambled eggs, bacon, toast, grapefruit, and orange juice when we returned to the house.  Mike left for Marco Island around 10:00 am.  Since it is too cloudy to sit at the beach, we headed with Cecilia to Periwinkle Place to do some shopping.  Cecilia bought the cutest binoculars at Friday's Child for her grandchildren who both have birthdays in March. We bought some items at The Original Chico's for ourselves.

 

Ibis feeding at Periwinkle Place

For tonight's dinner, we stopped on the way home at Timbers Fish Market and purchased fresh mussels (one of Ce's favorites) that had just arrived from Maine.  It began to sprinkle as we got back to the house.

Dinner was a joint venture tonight.  Al scrubbed the mussels, Cecilia made the salad, and I cooked the sauce, boiled the pasta, and  baked the rolls. The mussels were some of the largest, "plumpest" ones that we  have ever had.  Our mussels with light Italian sauce served over pasta was delicious as well as the tossed green salad.   Luckily, it was nice enough to eat dinner on the porch.

Day 27 on Captiva

Today was a restful day.....we spent the morning with coffee on the porch and working out the use of chatting using Gmail.  I made a late breakfast of leftover pasta with eggs ( an Italian recipe), bacon, fresh fruit bowl, biscuits and juice which we enjoyed on the porch. Spent most of the afternoon on the beach reading and relaxing.

The path to the beach across the street.

At the end of the beach path.

 Tomorrow, Cecilia flies home and it has been too short a visit. For her last night, we decided to take her to The Lazy Flamingo for a fun casual dinner. The place was busy so we sat at the bar which is really the best spot to

sit.  Cecilia tried the Fried Grouper same as the sandwich, just a little more grouper and no bun. Al had fried shrimp with fries. I enjoyed the peel  n eat shrimp, a bit messy but so good.

After eating,we drove up to end of Captiva to show Cecilia some of the island that she had not seen. We made it an early to bed night since we have an early wake up tomorrow.

Day 26 on Captiva

Today we went to the 75th Annual Sanibel Shell Fair and Craft Show which is a juried show, both scientific and artistic divisions, with participants from all over the country. The displays offer an education in shell identification and an appreciation for the artistry of shell arrangements. This is held  on the grounds and inside The Community House on Sanibel Island. One room holds scientific exhibits and another holds craft exhibits. Below are some of my favorite crafts made with shells on exhibit.

We enjoyed the fair seeing all the wonderful exhibits and crafts.  We also met Christine Lemmon, an author who lives here on the island.  We purchased another one of her books, "Sand in My Eyes", which she kindly autographed for us.


Cecilia and Al at the Shell Fair.

 We then stopped at Sanibel Cafe for lunch.  Cecilia had the shrimp quiche, Al ate the Reuben sandwich, and I had the shrimp salad. This restaurant has shell exhibits in all the tables as shown below.
 
We then shopped at the Tahitian Gardens where I bought gifts for Jacob and Hannah's birthdays...knit shirts from Life is Good shop.

We headed back home and spent some time at the beach. Dinner tonight was at The Mad Hatter, one of our favorite restaurants on Sanibel/Captiva where we enjoyed the sunset as we dined. We started by sharing an appetizer of Truffled Oysters that were roasted with truffles, garlic ,lemon, and thyme beurre blanc.  Cecilia and I had Spiced Watermelon Salad, fresh watermelon tossed with roasted pine nuts, cayenne pepper, fresh mint and feta cheese served atop organic baby arugula . Al had the Mad House Salad, mixed organic baby greens, sliced pear & candied walnuts tossed with the house shallot & red wine vinaigrette, garnished with raspberry coulis & crowned with tempura Gorgonzola. For entrees, Cecilia and I had the crab cake dinner with spicy remoulade and yucca fries.  Al dined on Dayboat Scallops pan seared  and panko and black truffled crusted,carmelized beurre blanc with yukon mashed potatoes. We finished our great dinner by sharing a dessert of Menagie Trios, a combination of creme brulee, death by chocolate, and ice cream with raspberry sauce. What a great dinner and day we had!

Day 24 on Captiva

Tuesday began with Cecilia and I checking out the beach very early for shells but we did not find it  any better for shelling today.  After some coffee, we  all went to Ding Darling.....thought we might find more birds than we did shells.  One exciting thing that we saw was the stingray shown below. It was swimming very fast wih several sucker fish .

Enjoyed seeing the white pelicans, tri-colored heron, mergansers, green heron, great blue herons, ospreys,  willets, and all the other regular residents along the drive.



View from
 the porch of Sunset Grill

We then headed to the sunset grill for brunch.   Cecilia ordered the Banana French toast with a twist -it is made with fresh banana nut bread.  It was very good....have to try that next time.  Al had Eggs Santiva, toasted English muffin topped with smoked salmon, poached eggs, capers, onions and hollandaise sauce. For brunch, I enjoyed the Eggs Captiva, homemade crab cakes and poached eggs on a toasted English muffin with hollandaise sauce.  Again we enjoyed eating on the porch listening to the sounds of the waves.

We did fit in some time in the sun on the beach after brunch.  Later we went out for the sunset,  but it began to rain just as we got to the beach. At least we did see a beautiful sky.

For dinner,  I prepared Shrimp Puttanesca full of flavors from shrimp, lemon, anchovies, garlic, red pepper flakes, tomatoes, Kalamata olives, capers, and vermouth. This was served over spaghetti with salads and hot rolls and of course glasses of wine.