Mary and Peter's Road trip USA 2017: 04/12/17

6b. Siesta Key and other beaches

Siesta Key and other beaches photo album

Wow it's hard to believe that we'll be on the road again in a couple of days or so. Our stay here in port Charlotte has been a very relaxing and recharging one. As mentioned in the previous post we have been hanging around the pool for the most part but occasionally we have ventured off to go do some geocaching and beaching. Here are some of the beaches we went to.

1. Englewood beach; known for its petrified shark teeth and shelling. My sister in law Mindy is so good at finding these teeth, she's found hundreds....then she creates her own artwork with the teeth. This shark photo is made from these shark teeth ....pretty cool huh?

2. Munche Beach and Pine Island : Not much to say say about this one except to say it smelled probably from rotting seaweed or something....so we had a quick picnic lunch and departed....We also ventured off to Pine Island on the same day.

Well as you can see from the map IT IS AN island, so we thought we would find a bike trail or some beaches we could swim at....well the bike trail is parallel to the main road..not my idea of a leisurely bike ride to enjoy the views so we DID NOT cycle and no public beaches to swim at ....for the most part the tips of the island are well maintained with expensive homes with private ocean front piers. It was quite apparent this island was not commercialized at all so there weren't many tourist type amenities.... in fact all we saw were palm tree nurseries up and down the main drag on the island.....needless to say we turned around and left the island....

3. AHHHHHHH.....Siesta Key Beach: it's no wonder this beach has been voted America's #1 beach for many years ....it's by far my favorite beach of all. Last Monday was a very special day..... we met Andreé Anne and her family at this beach for an afternoon and evening of fun, laughter, dancing, singing, love and the pièce de résistance......the MOST spectacular sunset I have ever seen.

Siesta Key Beach , which provides free parking and shuttle service to all three beaches on the island, has the finest , whitest sand which feels soooooo good and cool under your feet because it's made up of 99% quartz. What's special about quartz is that doesn't heat up like regular sand, soooooo you never need to run like a chicken when you're barefoot on this beach. Siesta Key also has a very active tourists' village lined with restaurants, shops and nightlife!!!! We had so much fun we actually closed the beach down ....we left around 10:30 even though sunset was around 8 ish ...the moon provided enough light for us to enjoy ourselves til then...wowwwww amazing day.....

4. Turtle Beach and Point of Rocks Beach: these 2 beaches are south of Siesta Key and still considered to be part of Siesta Key. Turtle beach is the most southern one and oddly enough it doesn't have the same white sand, although it is a lot more secluded if you want privacy. We then moved to Point of rocks beach which is in between.....yeahh back to the white sand and snorkeling to boot off a point of rocks that just out from the beach. Welllllll it wasn't exactly the Great Barrier reef but we did see lots of fish....I managed to get a video of them check it out in our photo album...Off in the distance on the beach , a wedding was taking place during the sunset. It was pretty special for the bride and groom. All in all another great day at the beach...although Siesta Key remains my absolute favorite of all.