Good Time Charters

What a wonderful morning dolphin and shelling cruise we had. The dolphins were abundant and we even saw a few manatee. We found several sea stars at the island and lots of pretty shells. We received this photo from a family that cruised out with us on a recent tour. In the photo is their daughter Melanie with a spiny sea star, learning about them from our guide Cristina. This cruise was great and we saw so much wildlife.

We have had some great tours so far this summer. The dolphin in the pic we have named Jack knife. She jumps vertically completely out of the water and then reverses nose first back into the water. She has a calf with her that often jumps along side her. They are soo fun to watch. On a recent morning dolphin and shelling cruise, we not only saw lots of manatees and dolphins, we found a live horse conch at our shelling island. The other picture is of one of our passengers holding the conch. The tides have been so high, with strong tides around our new moon, so the shelling has been challenging, but we are still finding nice shells, sea stars, horseshoe crabs, and lots of othersealife around the shoreline.

On one of our morning shelling and dolphin cruises last week we saw a baby snowy egret entangled in fishing line dangling from a low lying branch head down in the water. We thought it was no longer alive and Cristina, our marine biologist and naturalist, waded over to it to cut all the line out of the trees to prevent another entanglement, and to release the unfortunate bird. To our surprise the egret was still alive and struggling to keep his head above water. The egret was exhausted and seemed completely content resting on Cristina’s hand. We were able to get it to a wildlife hospital on Sanibel. Unfortunately, the doctor called us 4 days later to inform us the little egret didn’t make it.

We love summer time here. The birds are nesting and our dophin also seem to be enjoying summer too. These shots were taken by our crew on a recent cruise.

We have been getting to know our resident dolphin and I have started cataloging the ones I see daily on our tours. This couple of dolphin in the photos I always observe together and they LOVE to play. I have named them Lipknot and Blackbeard. I have no idea of their gender yet but Blackbeard is much larger of the two and loves to do belly flops near the boat that will often splash us as we watch in awe. The top photo is of Lipknot, the bottom photo is Blackbeard.

Here is one of our many photos of one of the resident dolphins in our bay, “Notch” and her calf. We have been observing her for a few years now and we are quite fond of her. She often will swim and do acrobatic leaps near our boat with her calf alongside. Some days she is a little stand-offish towards us but this morning she was very social and interactive with us. What a wonderful display she gave us this beautiful morning on our Coastal Sealife, dolphin, and shelling cruise. Besides dolphin, we also spotted racoon, a huge flock of roseate spoonbills, night herons, and anhingas. On the shell island we found many seastars, many were still alive but there were a few that our passengers were able to keep. We can only hope that our passengers enjoyed the tour as much as we did.

Another beautiful morning on the water. Still a bit chilly with the north winds but the wildlife didn’t seem to mind. We found numerous live starfish on the shell island this morning and one that was not live for a keepsake.

We had a great dolphin show this morning on our Coastal Sealife, dolphin, and shelling cruise. We were all bundled up and cold on the water but the wildlife and dolphins were abundant and playful. Lots of shells and cool sealife around the island. Besides tons of whelks and conchs, we found a spiny sea star, a nine armed sea star, sea urchins, stone crab, and some horseshoe crabs. We find new treasures every day.

What a great morning for this cruise. We started out with a little fog that quickly burnt off once that warm Florida sun rose high. The dolphins were very playful all morning and played in our wake on the way to our shelling island. The McDowells were on board celebrating their wedding anniversary and they got a great cruise abundant with wildlife. We stopped at the bird rookery islands and found many magnificant frigates, pelicans, egrets, and herons. We also saw some roseate spoonbills and a racoon foraging for oysters around Coon Key. While shelling, we found some starfish along with some whelks and conchs. The starfish and live whelks were realeased, but the empty conchs and whelks were beautiful for the taking. The Gulf was calm for the return home and a lone dolphin played in our wake on the way back in.

Wow, there was tons of wildlife out this morning on our Coastal Sealife, dolphins and Shelling cruise. The dolphins were playful and the manatees were around too. Found some night herons resting in the mangrove trees and some nice shells at the beach. While the dolphins were playing near our boat I managed to grab this great shot of two jumping together.