Good Time Charters

Season has slowed down a little bit but the dolphins have not. We have been still been seeing lots of manatees as well. We have also been seeing the roseate spoonbills, reddish egrets, and many anhingas around. The photo here is of a couple passengers on a recent cruise with us. They had front row seats to watch the dolphins jumping behind our boat!

Here are some photos submitted to us by the Bradshaw family who go on a fishing charter every year with Capt Mike. The boys in this family are such a hoot and Pete is such a gentleman and great fisherman. One photo is of Pete showing off his Mackeral that he landed and the other is of the rest of the gang with their signature fishing stance. They were a lot of fun. Pete and his mom also joined us for a Coastal Sealife and shelling cruise. We saw many dolphins and manatee, and found lots of sealife at the island.

What great weather we have been having! Sunny and warm is the forecast. Fishing has been fun with a lot of our regulars returning to go fishing with Capt Mike. And our dolphin tours have been filling up every day, and we have been seeing LOTS of dolphins and also quite a few manatee. Here are some recent photos.

They have finally hatched! Osprey chicks again, and 3 this time. We have been observing this pair of Osprey for about 7 years now and every year we watched their chicks grow and fledge. These chicks in the photo by our guide Cristina is of the chicks about about 9 days old. They are so cute and the mother feeds them well while the father stands guard. The pelicans are also starting to get their breeding plumage so this summer we will have baby pelican pics to post too! Their is a lot of bait fish around and the dolphins have been very busy feeding, and not as playful as usual, but they are still swimming alongside the boat and doing fun jumps for us to see. We have been seeing lots of manatee around too!

We are definitely warming up here in

Dolphin Tour Fort Myers Beach

Southwest Florida, with highs supposed to reach 80 degrees by the weekend! Capt Mike reported a great day of fishing on the water today catching, snapper, pompano, black tip shark, and mackeral. Thats a great sign of lots of bait fish around. Capt Joe had a Loop charter yesterday with some return customers and said they saw lots of dolphin, and had a great afternoon on the water. Capt Cristina did a kayak tour in the afternoon and saw lots of night herons, anhingas, and one lone manatee! Also on her recent coastal shelling and dolphin cruise they saw lots of dolphins feeding, they weren’t as playful as usual but still swam right next to the boat, and found lots of shells at the shell island. The photo here was taken by Cristina during a rcent tour where 6 resident dolphin, including Notch, were swimming alongside the boat We look forward to our trips for the rest of the week and the beautiful weather to come here at Fort Myers Beach.

What a great year so far, lots of dolphins and some new calves to add to the population, lots of fun shelling, beautiful weather and gorgous sunsets. In the dolphin picture is a mom with her new calf. See the faint vertical stripes on the calf? Those are the markings from where the baby’s skin was creased while inside the mother. 

Also here is a picture and message sent to us from a recent passenger with this cool horse conch that we found at our shell island during our dolphin and shelling cruise.“We truly had a blast! And will definitely be back to see you guys if ever in the area again.  And got some amazing pictures.  You guys were awesome!!!  I attached a couple of pictures of the super cool shell…”

Some recent messages from passengers:

“We had an awesome time! You were the best tour guide! Unfortunately the video I thought I took with the dolphins didn’t work, but I still enjoyed it. Please find the pic of my dad and the sea star attached. We will definitely come back next time we visit. We would love to have our kids experience it! Thanks again. John & Mandy”

“Thank you so much Cristina ! I love the picture !
We now have all our nice shells in the bathroom giving it a tropical flavour (to beat the dreadful weather outside). 
We enjoyed the cruise tremendously,  
Keep the good work, educating people to ecology and teaching them to understand and respect nature and wildlife is essential. 
Cheers, Laurence”

Capt Mike has been really busy with fishing charters and has had a lot of regulars returning for season and a lot of new clients as well. We received this photo from a family that went fishing with Capt Mike last week. Our marine biologist, Cristina, has also been reporting lots of dolphin and now that our water temperature is approaching the 70s, even some manatee sightings. The Ospreys are busy nesting, and she noticed some of our pelicans starting to show their breeding plumage.

We are still having some cool brisk mornings on the water but that hasn’t slowed the dolphins down! They have been very frisky, busy feeding, and playing. As typical here in the winter, the shelling has been fantastic as well. Here are a couple of photos taken by our biologist, Cristina, from some recent dolphin tours. One is of a mother dolphin playing alongside her calf, and the other is of some shells that have been common finds on our morning dolphin/shelling cruises with some live sealife in a jar that Cristina collected during a recent tour to show our passengers. One morning we had about 8 dolphins swimming along both sides and behind our boat, some were jumping clear out of the water. We see dolphins everyday, and to have that many completely surrounding us and interacting was truly spectacular.

Back from another wonderful day on the water. The dolphins were abundant and playful all day long and we spotted many of our resident dolphins out playing and fishing as well. This morning on our coastal sealife and dolphin cruise we had an excellent tide for shelling and our guests found conchs, whelks, sea stars, urchins, sand dollars, and various other shells. Then on the way back to the marina a resident dolphin, Floppy and her calf started chasing our boat and jumping close enough to nearly splash us! In the photo, is one of our guests with a great spot to watch Floppy playing behind the boat.