Beach Report #3: Tuesday to Thursday

Good morning! Somehow it’s already Friday, and our last full day at the beach. Hard to believe we checked in way last Saturday?!

Tomorrow (Saturday) we check out and start the drive home. We’ll stop somewhere overnight and be home on Sunday.

It’s been a great week!! Thankfully, the only rain drops we’ve seen all week were on day #2 (Sunday) and there hasn’t been another drop since. The ocean has been calm (well, light waves) and mostly seaweed free and WARM and wonderful for long swimming and floating and wave riding sessions.

Tuesday:

On Tuesday morning my mom and I went down to the beach early to drop some beach chairs and stake out a spot. We then walked to a convenience store nearby for some drinks and a few odds and ends.

Back at the condo, everyone just chilled on the balcony (one of our favorite activities). I am finally getting to read Laura’s new book, Big Time!! (Delay not due to any lack of enthusiasm- it was just taking too long for me to finish other books I was reading…).

The water was clear and we were treated to a cool ray show! Doesn’t show up that well in photos but there were big schools? Groups? Flocks? of rays swimming and surfing the waves for a long time.

Eventually most of us went to the beach and swam. People tend to alternate between the pools and ocean.

After lunch, we headed out for our big excursion for the day- a dolphin sighting and snorkel boat trip. It was a good 30 min drive away, leaving from a marina down near St. Andrew’s State Park.

Got checked in and waited on a dock with a very “Florida” view:

Cute one of Ethan 🙂

The catamaran trip was 3 hours total. We got really lucky and were in the front of the line to board, so we snagged a spot at the very front of the boat- meaning the kids could sit in one of the nets!

This wasn’t a private tour, so other folks were on the boat too. Others had to sit in the back- not a bad spot, but our front row bench plus the nets was way, way better.

We stopped at several spots and got to see dolphins swimming! I didn’t get any pics of them.

The whole front of the boat:

After an hour of sailing we anchored at Shell Island for snorkeling and island exploring. The water here was shallow and SO warm and was a perfect first snorkel experience for my sister’s kids. They were really into it- especially my 7 year old nephew!! He can swim, but wore a life jacket in this case and was able to float around and look for things underwater.

We saw several big crabs, a sea urchin, lots of fish (NOT like in the Virgin Islands, haha- basically just one boring variety of fish, but a lot of them!), and a hermit crab.

I really enjoyed just swimming around and getting to snorkel again (even though like I said, this snorkeling had nothing on the Virgin Islands, haha).

We also swam to shore and then walked across Shell Island to the gulf side, which was GORGEOUS. A totally deserted beach, with clean white sand all the way. I so wished I had had a camera!! Oh well.

After an hour of snorkeling and island time we re boarded the catamaran.

Drying off and cashing in our free drink:

The ride back was really beautiful as we were heading towards the sun, and they played great music the whole way. I really enjoyed this and am glad we decided to do this! It was a last minute thing I looked up on Monday and booked for Tuesday.

Afterwards we all kind of snuck into the Hilton where the tour left out of and used their pool bathrooms to change and clean up for dinner. Ha.

We had planned to try to go to a local Cajun place my brother-in-law had found for dinner, but when we arrived there was a HUGE wait. Definitely popular! Most places do not take reservations, either.

We pivoted to Plan B- it was getting later for the kids. Ended up swinging by a Chipotle for take out for all the kids (my boys included). Ethan then drove all the kids home for bed in our van, and the 6 adults went out for a nice seafood dinner at Bayou Bill’s Crab House! Haha.

Lots of alligators in front of the restaurant.

There were lots of people waiting (they also do not take reservations…) but without kids, we went for it anyway. Thankfully the “45 minute wait” they told us was only… 8!

We had a really nice dinner. I had Parmesan grilled shrimp skewers and rice and hush puppies and Ivan and I split a big bowl of a crab bisque which was delicious. I also had wine. 🙂

Everything was great! I liked this dinner a lot.

We ended the night just lounging on the balcony etc. A very good day.

Wednesday

Wednesday was another perfect weather day. Spent a long time just reading and sipping tea on the balcony in the morning.

We went out for brunch at the Waffle House!! It was SO GOOD, hahaha. I wish we had Waffle House! My waffle was so soft and fluffy.

I was stuffed after that so Ivan and I went for a long walk when we got back.

I have basically no photos of the afternoon- most people were at the big pool most of the day (which is half covered, so there is shade, which is good for the kids). Ivan and I swam in the ocean to cool off after our walk, and then hung out by the beach pool. I read a bunch more of my book! Very relaxing.

Once it got later in the afternoon and the sun wasn’t so hot, my sister and kids came back to the ocean.

We all swam until we saw a couple jellyfish and decided we’d had enough swimming for now. 😆

Asher trying to teach his cousin to skim board. This was great until Asher whacked his toe on the board and his whole toenail ended up mostly breaking off!! We thought he was going to be out of commission and he sat out of the water yesterday morning, but it seems okay now. He did fine in the pool yesterdays afternoon.

Ethan and I sat down on the beach for a long time in the “golden hours” of the late afternoon- not too hot anymore, sparkling water… perfection.

The 6 of us (us plus my parents) went out for dinner at 6:45. My brother-in-law was gone for the night to meet up with an old friend who lives somewhere in Florida not too too far, so we were down one vehicle. J said the kids could use a quiet, early night, so they stayed in and ate up some things in their condo.

We lucked out and got a perfect beachfront table at a newer Señor Frogs that we hadn’t been to yet.

Seriously, both the table and the timing of this were ideal! We got to watch a beautiful sunset right from our table.

Ivan was happy to get refried beans, lol, and I had tasty carne asada tacos. Their habanero salsa was excellent, too.

My cute boys 🥰:

Then we dropped the boys off to go upstairs and “babysit” (the kids were already in bed, so all they had to do was hang out in our room with the walkie talkie) and we picked up my sister to go out for drinks.

There’s a huge Irish restaurant/brewery very near our place that has a big bar and live Irish music.

The musician was from Dublin and my sister put in a few requests. 🙂

It was fun! Good conversation and a nice ambiance for hanging out.

Thursday:

Yesterday, Thursday, we had a very chill day.

Tea on the balcony, and then ocean swimming/floating in the morning, followed by pool time.

A midday break for snacks/lunch. I dried off and read in the shade with a sparkling water for a while.

Eventually back to the pool where Asher played with the kids and I got hot and swam for a long time in the very refreshing water.

Ethan and I went back for more golden hour beach time- he is a huge fan of this! We put our little chairs right along the water’s edge so the waves would just lap up on our legs, but we weren’t in the water. Very peaceful and enjoyable!

Ivan and my dad went out to pick up our traditional peel and eat shrimp from a local seafood market. We get this every time we come and it’s SO good.

Everyone came to our condo for dinner. Yummmmmm.

Not shown: key lime pie!!

Post-dinner hang out:

Finally, we ended the night with sunset on the big fishing pier (though at the last second the sun dropped behind some clouds that came out of nowhere).

Heading out on the pier. So so pretty!!

The pier is realllly long! The kids liked looking over at the water- we saw a dolphin and also more rays- and lots of people were fishing.

Family pic at the end of the pier:

A great one of my parents with all their grandkids. 🙂

Finally, we had a tasty night cap of ice cream from a creamery that the kids get ice cream from every time we come!

Ivan and I shared a vanilla with berries combo. Then back by about 9 for the kids to get to bed. Ivan and Ethan watched a Mexican soccer game and other adults hung out on the balcony for a bit (my sister and her husband came down one floor to ours after the kids were in bed) before calling it a night.

That’s all for now! Sad to think today is our last beach day already. 😦

Beautiful early morning skies: