Sanibel Island 2015 - Day 2

For our 2nd day in Florida we drove 2 hours north to visit my friend Karen in Englewood.  Karen is the Essential Beachcomber and a shark tooth hunting expert.  We had such a great time when we met up with her a couple of years ago that we wanted to do it again.  Karen graciously cleared her schedule and met us at the beach....

Karen has all the cool tools for scouring the beach for sharks teeth and she brought them along for us to share.  Here she is showing us how to properly use the scoop....

How can you not love a day on the beach with scenery like this....

We stopped at Publix on the way through Englewood and picked up a couple of Cuban sandwiches for lunch.  Karen introduced us to Cuban sandwiches the last time we were there and it wouldn't be a day of shark tooth hunting without a couple of Cuban sandwiches for lunch.  You work up quite the appetite digging for teeth!

Check out all the sharks teeth we found.....

This was my "find" of the day....

So far this is the largest one I've found.  Isn't it a beauty?

Look at the variety of colors, shapes and sizes of the various teeth....

By late afternoon we were feeling the effects of the hot, sunny day and decided to head back to Sanibel.  After cleaning up and dressing we headed over to Timbers for a nice dinner....

We both started with a bowl of clam chowder and we agreed that it was the best we had ever tasted - super rich and creamy with nice chunks of clam.   Very good!  It came with a hot loaf of whole wheat bread too.

My dinner was salmon with brown sugar and pecans.  It was just ok.  They used to have a Teriyaki salmon that was fab, but it wasn't on the menu this year.   Insert sad face here.  The grilled veggies were really good tho.

For 2 nights in a row Chablis chose the better meal.  Here she had crunchy grouper and it was out-of-this-world delicious!  One piece of the grouper had already migrated over to my plate, so she got 2 large pieces.  And check out the football sized baked potato!  I highly recommend their clam chowder and crunchy grouper.

All in all in was a wonderful day.  We later decided that our day on the beach with Karen was the best day of our entire trip.  Thanks Karen.  You are a true friend and one of a kind.  We love you!

Sanibel Island, Day 4

When we got up this morning and looked out the window, we discovered that a turtle had crawled up right onto our beach in the middle of the night and laid a nest.  The official turtle people were already out there, marking it and staking it off.  Pretty exciting stuff!

Today was another day that I was particularly looking forward to.  We were driving off the island for our first time ever, to visit my friend Karen in Englewood.  I call Karen the  “Shark Tooth Hunter Extraordinaire!”  This lady knows how to find the shark teeth and that is something I wanted to try for the longest time.  We piled into the car at 7:30 am and headed to Englewood.  It took us about 2 hours, allowing for a stop to pick up coffee and another stop for gas.  It wasn’t a bad drive though.

Once we reached Englewood, we met Karen at the beach.  Here is a woman who knows how to roll out the welcome wagon.  She had set up a fantastic spot for us on the beach, complete with umbrella, chairs, towels, coolers, drinks and lunch.  Wow!! 

Before we even had a chance to start looking for teeth, Laurie and Wendy spotted this turtle.

Karen has the official shark tooth hunting tools – special basket device and a really cool screening device.  Don’t you just love my official terminology?  She took us down to the water’s edge and showed us how to sift for teeth.  It took us awhile to get the hang of it.  For every tooth I found, Karen found 15.  She really has the eye for spotting them. 

Everyone paid close attention to her, including this bird….

Chablis really liked the screen device....

But I preferred to just sit on the beach and sift through shell piles.  This one was my best find for the day.

For lunch, Karen introduced us to Cuban sandwiches, which were really good, hummus and chips, and brownies for dessert.  It was a perfect lunch for the beach. 

Afterwards we headed back to the shell piles...

 and then we got Karen to pose for a phooning picture.

Before we left to head back to Sanibel, we took Karen to find a geocache.  She was interested in our hobby so we went to find one that was close by.  Doesn’t Karen look like a natural geocacher?

We had such a great day with Karen – it was so much fun and we learned a lot about shark teeth.  I found about 70 pretty nice teeth.  Or rather, Karen found most of them and I helped!

Once we got back to Sanibel we ate dinner at the condo and then drove out to The Bubble Room to get a slice of Orange Crunch Cake for a little late night snacking. 

We were so tired from our busy day of shark tooth hunting that we didn’t even drive anywhere to watch the sun set.  We just sat on the beach and watched the waves roll in.