The beach! That was our main purpose for choosing Marco Island as our vacation spot. The island features several beaches, and all of them are clean and easily accessible.
We enjoyed great weather for the whole trip, except it rained all day on Saturday. I mean lots of rain…all…day. So that day we went shopping and rested at the house by playing toys, reading and watching a little TV.
Avery had her own to-do list for our beach vacation:
- See the ocean (Technically she didn’t see the ocean. But we didn’t bother explaining to her what the Gulf of Mexico is.)
- Build sandcastles on the beach
- Collect seashells
- See dolphins
- Bury Mommy, Daddy and Karen in the sand
- See a crab
She was able to mark each item off her list.
We made our first beach visit to Public Access Beach. Here Daddy and Avery saw two dolphins swimming in the ocean, pretty close to the beach. Unfortunately we didn’t get any pictures.
I don’t think Avery was too impressed with the sand castle (complete with swimming pool) that Daddy helped her build. I think she was expecting something much bigger and grander.
We also buried each others’ legs in the sand. Avery wanted to bury someone all the way up to the neck. We convinced her that the legs would be enough.
The other beach we visited was Tigertail Beach. We went here on Sunday, the day after the big rain storm. It was our last full day in Florida, so we were going to spend time at the beach no matter what the weather was like!. We thought we were in the clear until a huge rain cloud burst on us while we were on the beach. We ran back to a sheltered area, but we were already soaked to the skin. We waited there for the rain to stop. We were glad the storm was pretty brief because this beach offered some spectacular views of the Gulf.
Looking at this picture, you’ll see a line of trees on the horizon. We actually walked around the left side of those trees. A few miles later, we came upon a great beach that you’ll see below.
I forget what kind of birds these are. After the storm, they were looking for food in the water.
And this bird was diving for fish.
We had a nice long walk. Avery alternated between riding on Daddy’s shoulders and walking.
This was our reward for hiking to the Gulf. Gorgeous foam, lots of seashells and the beautiful sound of surf hitting the beach.
It was mighty windy and loud here. Avery held tightly to her hood, fearing it would blow away.
The only bad thing was that after walking all that way to the Gulf, we still had to walk back to the lagoon and our car!
We didn’t get enough of the beach, so on Sunday night (between dinner and ice cream) we went back to Public Access Beach. Once again, Avery thought her sunglasses would blow away in the breeze!
Aunt Karen took some “artistic” shots of us…
…and we returned the favor.
Just as we were about the leave the beach, I noticed something moving on a rock. It turned out to be a tiny crab. Avery was excited that she got to see her long-anticipated crab!