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.

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.