Aside from the excellent food served, the tables at The Sanibel Cafe might be this establishment’s best feature. The tables are glass-topped and filled with shells! Many of them are fossilized artifacts from long-ago eras, sitting side-by-side with their modern day counterparts. Featured above: a fossil junonia sitting next to one we would all seriously consider going to jail for! (Just kidding, Richard… seriously, I’M JUST KIDDING!). Both of the owners, Ken and the...
The interior is decorated with containers full of Sanibel booty – sea shells! I like the syrup pitcher and salt and pepper shakers full of shells the best. The seating is comfortable. You can watch the chefs hustling and bustling around to create your meal. A peek out the window at the newly improved Tahitian Gardens breezy porches.
It’s “season” in southwest Florida, and especially on Sanibel Island. This means all the snowbirds are in residence, and there are lots of vacationers as well. Eating establishments tend to be crowded, and the wait tends to be long. However, it was late enough in the afternoon that most of the lunch crowd was starting to clear out of The Sanibel Cafe The Sanibel Cafe is located in the newly-renovated Tahitian Gardens shopping plaza...
Here’s the whole dishpan full of haul. At Access 7, we hung a right down the beach toward the place with the leaning tree. There was a spot down that way where there was LOTS of stuff rolling around in the breaker line, constantly churning. Very difficult to get anything specific under these conditions. One must employ the scoop/dump/squat method. You haul your net-on-a-stick into the water and just randomly scoop up whatever comes...
Here’s the pile o’ Nanny from another angle. This was actually only one spot of heavy concentration. It was not this bad the entire beach over. Here’s a heartbreaker shot. I should have put something down for scale. I’m going to guess that if this true tulip still had its head, it would have been the entire length of my hand.
Here’s some red algae aka “The Nanny” embedded in the sand. There were some squishy spots, where you would sink down because there was Nanny hiding under there. The Nanny itself smelled tangy – that first day of Nanny smell. The other smells were coming from elsewhere, up at the high tide line… Here we see that there are still lots of sea urchins left, even after Kim and I collected a bazillion last...
First stop, 7-11 for coffee. Then we drove to the Lighthouse Beach, where we patrolled up and down for maybe 90 minutes or so. Found some small treasures there, including some wentletraps, which made Kim happy.Next up, Access 7. On the beach, Kim started carving messages in the sand (see pics, right). I hope you all like them! No, I do not know what the bright orange thing is in the “o” of “LOVE”,...
We all dressed rather speedily, and stealthily left the house. You don’t want to make noises like the household is awake, because then Lexi will start squawking and demanding to be uncovered and such. Also, Gary and Tootie were still asleep, as far as we knew. So we were good and quiet. Transferred beach gear to Kim’s car, which was last in the driveway, and away we went.
Well, Kim snores too, but she snores little. I snore big. I snore operatically. So then I figured she must have been awakened by the symphony coming from the next bed, and removed herself to the couch. But I wasn’t sure. So then I went to awaken Chris, who was just sitting up on the bed in the next room. I told her that I lost Kim, and thought maybe she was sleeping downstairs....
