Last of the Sanibel photos

In order to get ready for my week on Sanibel Island, I have to use up the
pictures I have left. In this post I will do just that! This way, when I go back
to Sanibel this year I can take new pictures and post them. Yes, I will be going
- as it turns out all the hurricane damage was repaired. Unit 156F opened up to
owners about a month ago. I am anxious to get there, I want to see first hand
what Hurricane Charlie did to MY island. I have only seen the island from 200
feet out of a small plane since the hurricane.

Anyway, the picture below is the path that leads to the beach. As you can
see, this picture was taken on a very nice day. Those breakers you see are
happening very close to shore. The breakers in the background are caused by a
sandbar. Beyond the sandbar, there are no whitecaps. The sea this day was pretty
flat. In this picture, you are looking SOUTH. This is one of the unique things
about Sanibel, most barrier islands on the Florida Gulf Coast run parallel to
the mainland. Only Sanibel juts our east to west.

Sanibel is home to a whole lot of wildlife. There are the animals that live
there all year, like the Ibis birds below, but in the winter Sanibel becomes
home to a large amount of migratory birds. I go to the island in the summer, so
all I see are the year round resident critters. These animals include sea gulls,
pelicans, alligators, dolphin (the flipper kind), raccoons, and even the
endangered Spoonbill.

Not all the days are nice. It is actually very uncommon for it to not rain at
least once during the week I am there. I enjoy watching the storms from the
porch of the apartment. The lightning show can be amazing. On the porch, every
rainstorm is announced by a gust of cool wind, the result of the downdraft from
the clouds. When you feel this cool breeze, you know that it is going to rain.
Other times, the storm just floats past the island a few miles offshore. In the
photo below, I am about to be rained on. You can see how the sea has more
white caps. This is because the winds are picking up. I went to the beach just
to snap this photo. Then I started to look for someplace to hang out.

Now the rain is going. You can see that visibility is not so good. In this
photo, the winds are probably gusting to at at least 30 knots (1 knot = 1.15
miles per hour). I took the photo from ground level. There was a lack of
lightning in this storm, just wind and rain. The place I was hanging out at had
the local Doppler radar feed on the TV, so I could see that I was in a "red"
area.

Below is a shot taken of the sea during the height of the weather. Normally,
you would not see any breakers from this view. I was a good distance from the
shore, I had to use all the zoom my digital camera had to take this shot. Those
waves are at least 4 - 6 feet in height, and this is inside the sandbar. Not a
very good time to be out on a boat.

So where was I hanging out for all this? At the pool bar of course! This is a
picture of the business end of the pool bar. As you can see, it is not messing
around. I had a few drinks while I was stranded there due to the rain. See those
trees in the background? Notice anything similar to the trees in the picture
above? The picture above was made with full zoom, the photo below was made with
the lens at wide. My digital camera is pretty good.