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Cheri and Becky's Excellent Adventure | home
Trips and Beaches
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What a great place this is! We went here the day after we got to Florida and spent the day shopping and went on a Dolphin Cruise in Boca Ciega Bay. It was such a beautiful day, full of sunshine and us with a "vacation" frame of mind. We saw a lot of dolpins on the cruise, which surprised us both. We went back several other days to John's Pass to shop some more. They had the most unique shops and lots of fun things to see. We loved every minute of it and got a lot of nice souveniers.
We also ate quite a few mornings at the "Friendly Fisherman" that is the main restaurant in Hubbard's Marina, which is located in John's Pass.
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View of the shops off of the pier at John's Pass.
Some palm trees around the shopping area of John's Pass.
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Cute little bar/restaurant called Sundowners.
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Cheri on the pier at John's Pass.
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Becky on the pier at John's Pass.
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"Redneck Riviera" - I loved that!
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Booth at Hubbard's Marina where you sign up to go on the sightseeing trips, snorkel trips, or fishing trips.
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Birds on the pier.
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The Dolphin Watch boat we went on.
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Dock area at John's Pier.
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The Casino Boat at the pier.
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View of shops from the boat.
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Houses on the bay.
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Boca Ciega Bay
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Fishing trolleys docked in Boca Ciega Bay.
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More bay houses. One house back in here had the swimming pool that the movie "Cocoon" filmed in.
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Some of the dolphins we saw on the cruise.
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More dolphins.
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A bunch of dolphins here. We saw quite a few and they even sort of "performed" for us. It was really something.
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This was an island in the bay that was a bird santuary.
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Another view of the bird island.
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A view of the pier area of shops. The "Friendly Fisherman" is right in front of the lighthouse, and right in front of that is where the Dolphin Cruise took off.
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Outside the Friendly Fisherman.
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We loved this store.
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Close up of the shark.
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Cheri very excited about more shopping.
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Our very favorite store, Caribbean Jubilee
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Cute little delivery car for one of the shops.
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What's up with the Pirates??
Cheri and a pirate.
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Cheri moves on to the next pirate.
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Another day another pirate......
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I like the pirates myself!
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His lap is really not too comfortable.
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Yes, we have a thing for the pirates!!
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There was such a nice park and beach area at Fort Desoto for the dogs. The day we went it was pretty hot and there really wasn't a lot of shade, but we had a ball. Rudy is not that happy with the water, but he did give it a try. Toby and Elvis did pretty well swimming with me, and they all had their cute little life jackets on, which many people smiled at.
We got there pretty early and there weren't that many dogs out. After a while, they started really coming. Mostly big dogs, water dogs, but some other cute smaller dogs too. Our boys loved barking at them and smelling them. One little (well bigger than our boys) Dachshund-Beagle mix was running all over the place, jumping on our blanket and terrorizing our boys, but he was sooo cute.
It really was a beautiful place, but we had more things with us than I think you'd have taking children! Toby got into some ground covering that was full of briars, and after we got back to the room, I found them all over him, it took me days to get them all out, and I finally had to take the scissors to him. Elvis had a few, but not too many, and Rudy had one or two. Toby just loves the water and will go and run right into it. The beach was nice here, but not as nice as the north beach at Ft. Desoto that Cheri and I went to a few days later. We did have fun, and talked to some nice people. We also saw some really beautiful well-behaved dogs.
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The entrance to the Paw Playground.
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The Paw Playground has two separate areas, one for small dogs and one for big dogs. It's a huge park, really nice.
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Benches inside the playground. The Dog Beach area is through the playground in the back.
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Me and Cheri with Toby, Elvis and Rudy. This was our first real day in the sun, so we had lots of sunscreen on. We tried to put some on the dogs like our friend Ulrica from Sweden does to Raymond, but it didn't work too well.
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This is the area behind the beach, where the boys got into the briars. Not sure what kind of plants these are.
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Cheri is getting Rudy into his life jacket.
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Looking out into the ocean. These are other folks who were there with their dog. The liked our dog's jackets and wanted to know where we got them.
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Cheri and Rudy on the beach.
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The dog portion of the beach goes down pretty far. This was filled with dogs by the time we left.
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Me, Toby and Elvis swimming. They probably wouldn't go out very far on their own, but they liked it when I took them out and let them go.
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The boys are out of the water and rolling all over the blanket. We eventually let them run loose and they all behaved wonderfully. They didn't quite know what to think of all of this. It was so hot, though, we couldn't stay out there as long as we wanted to. The sand on this beach was also very different than the sand on the North Beach we went to later. This sand was very rough and coarse.
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More dogs and people playing. It was a ANOTHER beautiful Florida day. I just loved the ocean.
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Shell Key is an amazing island. It is protected by the state and is in some phases of reconstruction in the Florida Bay. There are areas of Shell Island that allow dogs, but we went without the dogs to the island. We wanted to spend time gathering shells and snorkeling. We went to Hubbard's Marina, in John's Pass, to go on a tour with them, and because there were so few visitors this time of year, they cancelled it! They wouldn't go without ten people, and we only had seven. Fortunately, the captain knew of another place that had a shuttle, Merry's Pier, in Pass-a-Grille, south of Treasure Island. They double checked and a shuttle was leaving in a while, and we had time to head down there to catch it. It really was quite close. We went back through Treasure Island, then through St. Pete Beach, past all the fancy hotels there, and straight on through Don Cesar's, a really fancy PINK beach hotel, on to a beautiful little place called Pass-a-Grille. Merry's Pier was right there where it should be and we headed off to the Island, which is only reachable by boat. Cheri was ready for some shelling, although she humored me and was going to give snorkeling a try as well. She ended up loving it and we had so much fun. The water was beautiful, the shells were AMAZING! We each got a huge bag of big shells of all kinds. I'm making crafts with mine, but I have so many, I'll never use them all. It was really an amazing place, you should go if you're ever in that area.
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Passing through the strip of hotels on St. Pete Beach.
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Don Cesar's HUGE PINK hotel in St. Pete.
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The dock at Merry's Pier where we caught the shuttle.
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An aerial view of Shell Key.
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On the shuttle to Shell Island.
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A view of Pass-a-Grille from the shuttle.
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We see Shell Island!
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The beach is amazing. You can see Pass-a-Grille off in a distance up on the right side of this picture.
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One of the beautiful beaches of Shell Key.
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Another beach view. It was amazing that we were here practically by ourselves. We put our things down and went snorkeling and then walked the beach picking up so many shells.
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You can see how many shells are just scattered everywhere here. They are all entwined with the seaweed and are just laying everywhere for you to pick them up. This shot is just tiny shells, the bigger shells were on the other side of the island.
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This is my bucket (completely full) of shells soaking in bleach after I got home. I had to stack them carefully to be able to fit them all in the bucket. I also brought a big bag of sand to make jars with sand and shells in them.
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Cheri still trying to decide if she wants to snorkel!
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Cheri snorkeling for the first time.
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We had underwater cameras, but there wasn't much to see in the water at Shell Island.
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Me snorkeling on Shell Island.
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Cheri's still snorkeling. She likes it despite herself.
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She's just like a FISH!
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I'm not sure who this is, but we're having a blast!
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The folks at Merry's Pier gave us a "Diver Down" flag and weight to make sure we were safe from the boats and jet skis that sometimes come in close to shore.
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We only saw one or two boats off the shore.
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We found these creature shells all over the island. I never saw a live one and I have no idea what they are. If I had seen one in the water, I would never get in the water again! Some of these were huge, as big as a Yorkie! They reminded me of something I had seen on Star Trek.
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Really peaceful and beautiful.
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Such a beautiful place.
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This is a lovely area and the North Beach that we went to is rated in the top 10 beaches in the US. We first stopped at the ruins of Fort Desoto, which you have to pass to get to the North Beach. This is past the dog beach area and is on the other side of the island. It just so happened that the day we came was Sept. 11, and the flags were flying at half-staff. It was a powerful site being on this battlefield that our men once died on, especially on this day.
We walked through the ruins and were in awe of the view from the fort out into the Gulf of Mexico. After walking all around the fort, we went on up to the North Beach. That part of the park was also beautiful, and was surrounded with picnic areas that were half-enclosed by trees. There were pine trees and palm trees mixed in together, which was a lovely thing to see. We met some nice squirrels walking back to the beach area. The beach area, once again, was almost empty. This was honestly one of the prettiest beaches I had ever seen. The day was sunny and beautiful, as every day before had been. There was a breeze in the air, so it did not seem near as hot as previous days. We swam and snorkeled and looked for shells. We got a few, but nothing like what our take was at Shell Island. I built some "Sand Yorkies" and we watched someone flying a kite over the water in the distance. This really was the nicest day we'd had so far and this place was amazing. A must see for anyone who is in this area.
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Driving past beautiful scenery going to Fort Desoto.
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Flag at Fort Desoto.
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In the jail at the fort.
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Cheri in jail too. We wrote home for more money to get out, but no one helped us.
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Gulf view from Fort Desoto.
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Beautiful beach view. This place was so scenic, there was such beauty every where you turned.
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The beach surrounding the fort.
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View from the top of the fort.
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These trees are all around the area of the fort. These are called "Cabbage Palms" and look quite different from the palms we saw in the city areas.
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One of the cannon's facing towards the entrance.
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There were series of cannons along the walls facing towards the Gulf of Mexico.
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Cheri by the flag.
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A view of the cannon from the top walking area.
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Another view of the cannon's from the fort grounds.
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This is what they called a "Data Booth".
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This is where they stored ammo.
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A meeting room of some type at the fort.
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A beautiful view from the fort grounds.
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Another beautiful view from the top of the fort.
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A Florida lizard. These are all over the place, but very harmless.
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The fort was surrounded by the most beautiful trees.
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View of Egmont Key and Fort Dade on the little island.
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North Beach
Walking through the picnic areas to get to the beach.
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These squirrels just came right up to us.
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Such a beautiful beach, and almost empty.
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So peaceful. We watched the birds diving for fish.
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It was beautiful no matter where you looked.
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There was only one person out in the water.
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Cheri's ready to snorkel again (I think she likes it!).
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I'm loving the snorkeling.
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We actually saw fish today.
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More fish.
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These crab were everywhere in the water and I was convinced they were chasing me! No matter where I went there were crabs all around me. Ewww!
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My now famous "Sand Yorkies". Toby on the end (left) then Elvis then Rudy. And it says "Florida". Such a fun day, just a beautiful way to top off the week. We had to leave in just a short time.
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