Manatees, peacocks and a pelican in a mangrove tree along with November stats

On our way down the ICW on Wednesday we saw many signs that said, slow minimal wake, manatee zone...so of course I am looking for manatees but didn't see a one. We got all set up at our anchorage and we suddenly saw a "blob" come to the surface and then go back in the water. Sure enough Mark got the binoculars out and he could see the snout and the tail. Oh how I wish he was just a little closer but we had fun spotting him as he moved about the water flapping his tail. After the manatee swam off we got the dinghy ready to go to shore. We had a wonderful dinner at Mar Vista, I think this is the best seafood I have had on the entire trip. My baked scallops, shrimp and crab cake were amazing! 

I am so glad we had decided to stay at our anchorage because on Thursday we woke to sea fog. What is sea fog? According to the meteorologists it is fog which develops when the sea temperature is less than the dew point of the air above it. It was as thick as soup and when we were walking along the beach it actually felt like we were walking through a very fine mist. It took until 2 p.m. to finally dissipate.
Our next quest had us looking for peacocks on the north section of Long Boat Key, to no avail. We had heard there were up to 100 peacocks so it wasn't making sense why we couldn't find them, until we googled peacocks at Long Boat and found that they have been trapping them and moving them since the beginning of the year. I guess the residents said they do not make good neighbors.
We took a dinghy ride along the river and watched the fisherman use a cast net to catch fish. It's a circular net with small weights around the end. They throw it by hand, it spreads out and sinks and then they pull it in. We were amazed at how many fish they were catching. On the way back to the boat we saw what looked like an island of mangroves with pelicans, herons and other birds which made me think of the 12 days of Christmas...no partridge in a pear tree but pelicans in a mangrove.

No seafog on Friday so we headed to our next anchorage at Otter Key. We have Otter Key to one side which is an island of mangroves and Lido key on the other side with beautiful homes. We dinghied over to Lido Key and St. Armand's Circle, which is a circle of high end shops and restaurants. When we started back to the boat we saw several manatees in the water. They are not easy to take pictures of but we sat and watched 3 of them poking their heads out of the water. At dusk we watched the sunset and the homes with their landscape lighting made it feel like we were sitting at a high end resort. Amazingly, we were the only boat here basking in the beauty.
Otter Key is also a great area for watching birds, there must have been at least a hundred birds of all different types in the water when we woke Saturday morning. It is like sitting in the middle of a bird sanctuary. Today we will head over to Marina Jack's in Sarasota. Time to replenish and give the boat a good cleaning!

                              November Stats   Loop to Date
Days looping                30                       201
Travel days                   16                      116
Miles traveled             744                    4797

Never a good sight, but so many sailboats like

this along the waterway

Low tide exposes the shallow areas all around the ICW

Captain's Choice at anchor during sea fog

Walking along the gulf, visibility extremely low

Royal Tern

Pelicans in a Mangrove Tree

Watching the manatees at Lido Key