A Three Hour Tour....

Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale,

A tale of a fateful trip

That started from this tropic port,
Aboard this tiny Ship...

Briley and I ventured over the Captain Anderson's Marina to take a Three Hour Tour to Shell Island.

Luckily our three hour tour didn't end quite like Gilligan's did, and we had a wonderful time on the cruise to Shell Island.

On the boat ride over to Shell Island, the Captain told us that the sea gulls LOVE to eat Cheetos...and they do! It was the funniest thing, as soon as a bag of Cheetos was opened, the sea gulls swarmed the boat. We were on the open upper deck of the boat and were able to hand feed the sea gulls.

Just as the boat was arriving at Shell Island and we were all about to leave the boat and walk up the boardwalk to the beach area, the Captain announced that we had a visitor, or a greeter of sorts! Uh... YEA... right! I wasn't about to offer to shake hands with this - I don't know if the boat folks feed him or not, but it was obvious that this fellow wasn't leaving the dock area as long as we were there! This thing hovered and swam all around us, the entire hour that we were docked.

I didn't realize before we left the marina, that we would be able to actually play in the sand and surf at Shell Island, so Briley and I didn't bring our swim suits along with us - you can see by her facial expression that she wasn't too happy with me at this point! The water was absolutely gorgeous and there were tons and tons of sea shells just waiting to be picked up, but Briley was not about to 'get wet' with her clothes on! It was enough of a challenge for me to convince her to even wade out into the water - I don't think I will ever hear the end of that! The good side of this is that she has quite a collection of sea shells that we were able to dig out of the sand and the shallow water.

On the way back from Shell Island, we were greeted and entertained by the dolphins! There were several that swam back with the boat and played around the boat. I'm sure in all likelihood, the boat folks were probably dropping dolphin food under the boat, just so we could get a good look at these beautiful creatures, but who cares - we were able to see dolphins up close and personal! This was a great way to spend the afternoon... now just so you won't think that we were leaving Bailey and her dad out of the fun -they spent their afternoon riding jet skis in the Gulf of Mexico and ended up getting stuck behind some big shrimp boat and had to ride out some pretty tough waves! LOL... let's just say- they were both pretty sore from holding on and trying to stand up to keep from hurting their hineys in the rough wake!