Good Time Charters

Here are a couple of pictures of a mom and her two loving boys on board. Mom chartered the whole boat for a special outing with her two boys and she combined our marine life charter with a sunset cruise. What an amazing night and we personally think this the best time to do our marine life charter. We were out for four hours leaving at 4pm so by the time we got to our shell island all the other boaters had left, leaving the island all for us! The kids enjoyed swimming and finding all sorts of sea life including, conchs, whelks, calico crab, and sea stars. After a couple hours at the island we left and found lots of dolphin all throughout the bay, some feeding and some playing. Then we headed out to the Gulf side and watched an amazing sunset. We have such beautiful sunsets here on Fort Myers Beach. As we headed back to our marina we were able to watch the huge moon rise! What a sight and a perfect way to end the charter for our passengers.

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.

It’s mid March and the waters are stocked with wildlife. We have been seeing lots of dolphin, manatee are making appearances here and there, and Capt Mike is reporting great fishing with these great tides we have been having. Cristina has also been spotting sea turtle in the bay, Capts Joe and Dwight are also finding dolphin feeding and playing. Here are a couple pics from some recent charters. One is from a Marine Life charter of the kids on board with some of the sea life they found. The other is of a long time regular Dallas and his dad, with his 25 inch redfish that he landed during a fishing charter with Capt Mike .

We are seeing some seasonal changes with our wildlife around Fort Myers Beach! The pelicans are getting their breeding plumage, Osprey chicks are hatching, the manatees are back, Cristina spotted a sea turtle on a recent tour, and Capt Mike has reported lots of baitfish and small shark in the passes. The weather has been amazing too with Lots of warm sunshine. Here are a couple of pics from a recent marine Life Explorer’s Charter. We saw lots of dolphin on that charter, and they didn’t do any of their usual jumps and chase our boat because they were too interested in each other! We were lucky enough to spy on a whole resident pod mating, and some were feeding on a school of mullet. In the same area that activity was going on we also saw a manatee. What a site. The kids found all kinds of shells and had a great time finding all sorts of sea life, including a really cool lined sea star. This charter was great fun went by too fast.

What a great afternoon on the water we had with the Tiessen family. They chartered us for our Marine Life Explorer’s Adventure and we all had such a great time. The kids were really adventurous, joining our marine biologist in the mysterious grass beds with nets in hand to see what all they could catch. After getting the hang of the nets, they were all catching whelks, hermit crab, horseshoe crab, small fish, and a variety of other sealife. Other than beautiful shells to keep, they also found a lot of sea life at our shell island, such as sea stars and sea urchins. The dolphins were abundant and one of our resident dolphin, Oscar, was sighted. The Tiessen’s sent us some photos from their adventure, one of their daughter with a sea star and one of Oscar, one of the many dolphin we encountered that afternoon.

We are so fortunate to have so much sealife abounding in our surrounding waters. These photos are from a recent Marine Life Explorers Private charter with the Hall family of four generations. What a pleasure they all were to have out with us. We went to our shelling island and not only found beautiful shells but the kids found seastars, sea urchin, whelks, sponge, blue crab, hermit crab. They were quite the explorers and found lots of sealife! Then they used our seine net, and with a little practice, were catching tons of small fish. We put everything in a touch tank for viewing before everything was let go. The dolphins were also very playful and they sure love to chase our boat! We know they could easily swim faster than our boat but they seem to just enjoy following along and playing.

Had a wonderful Marine Life Explorer’s charter with Monika Wilson and her family! What a delight they were to have out with us. We saw manatees and dolphins and the day was just gorgeous. We stopped at a grass flat along the way, I was hoping to catch them a seahorse but I couldn’t find any! I usually have a great success rate, however we did find lots of other marine life like flatfish, pipefish, spider crab, and sea hares. The water clarity was great at the beach we went to so they used the masks and snorkels to find lots of beautiful seashells. The current was a bit strong and made swimming a bit challenging. Mr Wilson and one of his daughters took off on the kayak to explore the nearby mangrove trails. The morning went by so quickly. What a great way to start the day! Mrs. Wilson provided some pictures of the charter with the crew.

On a recent Marine Life Explorers Charter, I stumbled upon my first Junonia shell. I wasn’t even looking for shells! There were so many beautiful shells that day that my charter did not need my help in finding them. Instead, I was wading near shore looking for some interesting marine life for my charter to view and there it was. It is about 3 1/2 inches long. I am not a sheller on my own time and felt a little guilty about it since some avid shellers spend a lot of time-years even looking for these rare jewels of the sea.

What a fabulous time we had while out on a Marine Life Explorer’s Charter with the Welch family. We really enjoyed being out on the water with this family of three generations. The girls excitement and energy was very contagious for all of us. The charter went by really fast, we were all having such a good time that I have a feeling we all could have stayed out all day. Attached are a couple pics of us using different methods to catch some interesting sea-life.

We had a great time while out with the Stadtmueller family on our Marine Life Explorer’s Charter. Check out this seahorse that we found swimming around during the charter. It was a gorgous day out that day.