16 Oct Tuesday

[Last Updated: 2018-10-16 21:48 EDT]

I was awake quite early this morning. I lay there thinking of the trip we'd booked today, hoping things would go to plan. The alarm had been set as we needed to be at the harbour by 9:30am. In the end we were there a little early. The sun was out, the wind was light. It looked like it would be a good day.

We were introduced to Chris who was going to be our guide. When we booked, Linda has requested a dolphin trip whilst I was going off to do a 90 minute jet-ski ride. In the end, we were told that as there had been no-one else booking today, they were going to combine the two trips. So I was set up on a jet-ski whilst Linda got into a small boat with Chris who then led us out into the waterway.

I was OK starting out on the jet-ski, bearing in mind I'd not ridden one before. But immediately it felt like it was tipping over whenever I tried to turn. With a few practice attempts though, I slowly got the hang of the basics and managed to reach 20 mph every now and again.

I'd still run into issues though whenever I hit the wake of the boat as I was following it, so eventually I was riding alongside the boat to keep out of the wake as much as I could.

We headed out into an open area and immediately Chris and Linda found a dolphin as I was moving about at a distance.

Meantime I was off on my own nearby and as I was approaching one of the islands in the area I too ran into a dolphin messing about near the surface. I was able to just sit there and watch it mess about which was very cool.

Eventually I rejoined the others and in doing so I'd managed to top 30 mph in the speed situation. Only very brief moments, though as it still felt like the jet-ski would easily dislodge me if I did something too out of the ordinary.

Circling under one of the bridges, we were caught up by a Sarasota Police boat which was cruising down the waterway. So we had to remember to keep to the exact speed limit until we passed into the faster area near one of the islands.

I took the time to stop near the boat to take on some water and re-apply sun lotion.

Linda has seen loads of dolphins in three or four pods. I also noticed a small sea turtle floating near the surface, something I'd not come across before.

Eventually, it was time to head back to the dock. We passed the Anna Maria Princess on which we'd sailed on Saturday.

We docked up and went to finish the paperwork. I was happy I'd done the trip, but I'm not sure I'm yet confident to go out on my own on one! Linda too had had a great time, taking lots of photos and just chilling on her private boat!

We headed back to the apartment for some lunch, but as I was feeling really hot, we stopped off in the pool first for a dip to cool down. Then back up for food.

We were both quite exhausted for some reason in the afternoon, maybe we've caught a cold? But we both ended up having an afternoon snooze! By the time we were up, we were really hungry, so we watched the sunset first - quite a good one.

Then straight out to have something to eat. We went to the local Fire and Stone Pizza. I discovered a new (possibly) favourite pizza. Chicken and Bacon on a Honey Mustard base. OMG where have you been all my life!! :)

We're going to try and stay up a bit as there's a rocket launch in Cape Canaveral this evening (12:15 am tomorrow morning). I know it's a long way away, but we might see something as the sky is very clear at the moment. It's an Atlas 5 rocket, so quite a big one.