Siesta Key, Florida – Day 3

Activities: Bike Ride to Jim Neville’s Preserve (Unsuccessful), Lunch at Turtle Beach Grill, Snorkeling at Point of Rocks, Sunset at Crescent Beach with Drinks
Date: February 20th, 2023

We woke up and made some coffee and eggs, ham, and cheese on toast while relaxing a bit around the condo. We both got pretty sun burned the day before, so we lathered up with some sunscreen before heading out on bikes towards Jim Neville’s Marine Preserve. We weren’t sure what to expect, but wanted to check it out and it wasn’t too far from our condo.

We took a nice easy ride along the designated bike lane to the right of the road, dodging parked cars and looking back to avoid any cars coming at us from behind. There were so many insanely nice houses along the route. We soaked in the great views and sunshine and enjoyed the cool breeze as we peddled along. We stopped near a campground just to see what it was like and noticed that Jill’s tire was looking pretty low. Upon inspection, it had a tack in the tire and the tube had a hole. We called our bike rental place, Ride and Paddle, and they said they could bring us out a new bike in about a half hour. We found a shady place to sit and wait and our friends at R&P brought Jill a new bike.

We continued our bike ride towards Jim Neville’s Marine Preserve only to find out that the road led us to a gated community and we couldn’t proceed any further. There was no good way to get to the preserve that we could find, so we started heading back towards our condo. Along the way, we found a restaurant that had good reviews on Google (we had plenty of time to check out places to eat while waiting for our new bike to arrive). Turtle Beach Grill had good reviews for onion rings (one of my favs) and crabcakes, so we tried those along with some mahi tacos. And on a nice, hot day, we needed a couple of cool drinks. I got a classic margarita and Jill, a Tropical Turtle.

After lunch, we finished our ride back to the condo. I was pretty hot and tired so we decided to hang out in the condo for a bit and cool down. Jill read her book and I listened to a pod casts. Once our core temperatures returned to a level we could handle, we jumped back on our bikes and headed back to Ride and Paddle to see if we could rent some snorkeling gear. Point of Rocks right near our beach access was supposed to be the best snorkeling on the key. While we were at R&P, we also rented a cooler. Who doesn’t like to drink a cold one after swimming around in some salt water? The cooler was a bit difficult to get back on the bikes, but we managed.

When we got back from Ride and Paddle, we loaded up the cooler, put it, some beach chairs, and the snorkel gear in a wagon and headed down to the beach. We parked our wagon, put on our fins, and headed out to explore the ocean. We swam around for quite a bit, but the visibility was low so we couldn’t see very much. I was able to pluck some cool shells from the ocean floor, but that was the extent of our excitement snorkeling. We waded back to our spot parked our butts in our chairs and went to work enjoying the contents of our cooler while soaking in the beach.

After a while, we realized our butts were wet from snorkeling so we walked back to the condo for a quick wardrobe change and some extra refreshments and headed back to the beach for sunset. We talked to several people that were also enjoying the beach and even helped people with pictures. Once the sun went down, we headed in for some leftover pizza from Pizza n Brew. We watched The Office on TV for a bit but we were in bed sleeping by 8:45.