Day 25 Captiva 2019

Wednesday, Feb 27
We had heavy rain on Captiva last night. Morning was cloudy  but I took an early walk to the beach.

Early birds at the beach.

We had poached eggs. sausage, toast, and strawberries for breakfast.  The Post Office called and told us our package of coffee (ordered online from Keurig )that we had been tracking had finally arrived (several days late) We were off to the  PO and then to Periwinkle Place to shop on this cloudy day....

….bought some blue shorts at Fresh Produce and then to Jerry's to shop.....snacks, wine, pastries, bread, sandwich meat. Stopped at Timbers seafood market for mussels and crab cakes. Back to the cottage  to the porch for the rest of this cloudy, rainy day.
Steamed mussels with Italian sauce for dinner and served over linguini with arugula salad and rolls.

Day 37 on Captiva

Cloudy morning! We went to Ding Darling for an early drive about 8 or was it 9....confused by the time change.  Anyway the time on the first photo was 8:10.  There was a low tide and a lot of ibis feeding .....only saw a few white pelicans 5-6.... a few roseate spoonbills feeding.....several yellow-crowned night herons including a "family" of three.  Most of our photos were  of night herons and roseates. 

These pictures give  a feel of the cloudy, gray morning:

 

 We had fun watching these yellow-crowned night herons: 

 

 

 

 

 And then a roseate spoonbill joined the herons:

 

 

 

Other birds of the day:

Reddish Egret

Tri-Colored Heron

 

Ibis

 

Mottled Ducks

 

Yellow-Crowned Night Heron near the end of the drive

Cat Bird

 

Our drive ended about 11:00 and we headed back to the cottage for a lunch of chicken sandwiches and chips.  We decided the cloudy afternoon would be a good time to hit the shops at Periwinkle Place and that we did.  It was more of a window shopping trip but I did buy something at Fresh Produce and some soap and lotions at a new shop Fanta Sea.

This shopping area is a lovely place located in a garden atmosphere with beautiful tropical plants, trees, and water fountains.

 

 

Since it is time to eat, we drove to Matzaluna for dinner but it was a 25 minute drive to the end of the island because of the bumper to bumper traffic headed to the causeway.

 

But we beat the dinner rush and were seated in a booth immediately.  Al ordered Veal Parmesan -tender cutlet, lightly fried, then baked with mozzarella and pomodoro sauce and served a salad.

I had Mulberry Street Shrimp-gulf shrimp, sauteéd with capers, mushrooms, tomatoes, spinach and prosciutto tossed in a sage cream sauce, served over angel hair pasta and with a salad.  This was absolutely delicious and way too large a portion.  By the time that we left, there was a long line of people waiting for tables and an overcrowded bar.  The Italian dinner was worth the drive in the traffic jam.

 

 

 

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.