Friday 30th December – to Sarasota

There’s a phenomenon here in Florida at the moment called ‘Eagle-cam’.  It’s all over the news about a couple of bald eagles that are incubating two eggs in a nest just north of Fort Myers.  This isn’t the first occasion this has happened and the eagles (Harriet and M15 – she got the better name) have raised young here before.  A local real estate company own and manage the cameras at the nest and the footage is streamed onto the internet 24 hours a day.  I have checked it out and it’s addictive viewing, the quality of the footage is brilliant.  You can still check it out for yourselves at http://dickpritchettrealestate.com/eagle-feed.html

Anyone for fish?!

Spot the nest.....

Despite the fact that the closest footage is from the cameras, as we were passing the area we thought we would go and find the nest itself.  We were not the only ones! But it was well worth it as we got to see the parent birds swooping in and out with food for whichever of them was tending the eggs.

Look at the technology...!

Harvey got nice and close....

Nest close-up....

From there we carried on north towards Siesta beach, the number one beach in the USA.  It must be true, it's on a sign....

The sand really is that white, it's not a reflection from the clouds!

As recommended by Barbara, it was a beautiful beach.  The sand was almost perfectly white and extremely fine.  But today was not quite sunbathing weather.  There were others on the beach but I would not have been convinced to get into swimwear let alone venture near the water today! So it was a brief visit before continuing on to Sarasota to Steve and Barbara’s house, arriving about 530pm.  Their neighbours were definitely still in the Christmas spirit.....

We reversed the RV up onto the front of their property and met their two dogs – Truly and Lucy, who were very friendly and affectionate.  Now, Sarasota is one of those places that I had certainly never heard of and we probably would have driven right by had it not been for meeting Steve and Barbara.  But it is a gorgeous place with a central square full of character and lively restaurants and bars and we walked down to the beach just in time for a stunning sunset:

We were then treated to dinner at the lovely Columbia Cuban restaurant, which was so generous and unexpected.  I had a Mahi Mahi fish dish which was delicious. 

We had such a lovely time at dinner and the Sangria really was the best we’d tasted!  Big thanks to Steve and Barbara for spoiling us.

My Mahi Mahi dish

Back at the house we attempted some music as a four-piece with me on bass guitar and Barbara on piano.  We managed some three-chord improvisations but we weren’t quite the Beatles!

Barbara with Truly, Lucy heading in through the dog-flap!

Simon and Steve did some more jamming before we moved on to the serious business of the scrabble.  We played two games.  You may be forgiven for finding it hard to believe if I say that Simon and I each won a game! Madness…  Not wanting to give Steve and Barbara the chance of success in a rematch, we felt that 1am was late enough to be calling it a night and headed out to the RV.