Monday October 18th

[21:10 EDT]

So today was out last full day on the Gulf of Mexico. We've spent 12 days on the Gulf and tomorrow we'll be moving on to Cocoa Beach which is over on the East side of Florida, on the Atlantic.

Today we decided to return to the original location on Anna Maria beach that we visited last year. This time, though, we went prepared with picnic, drinks, chairs and even a beach umbrella that we borrowed from the apartment.

The location we went to is on the north edge of Anna Maria island, it's just a short strip of beach, but there's parking, shops and restrooms nearby so it's ideal to spend a few hours there.

As it turned out, there was hardly anyone else in that area.

The sky was flawless, it was mid 80's according to the forecast and there was a light breeze coming in from the sea. You couldn't ask for a better situation... except perhaps for an umbrella that would stay up in the soft sand! I had this battle with the umbrella for a while, only winning when I showed it who's boss with the aid of a 2x4 plank of wood that I found nearby ;)

We sat chilling, soaking up the sun. Linda continued her assault on her latest book. Eventually, we had to move as the chairs we'd brought along started killing the circulation after a couple of hours!

We took a short walk along the beach, stopping off for an ice cream.

We then walked along the rickety pier before returning home.

As this was our last evening on the Gulf, we popped over to the beach to take some final sunset photos.

It was actually a nice sunset as there were some wispy clouds about that bought out some nice colours.