Siesta Key, Florida: Day 4

Activities: Snorkeling at Point of Rocks, biking on Crescent Beach, drinks at Daiquiri Deck, Sunset bike ride on Crescent Beach
Date: February 21st, 2023

For some reason I wasn’t able to sleep in. I woke up at 6:45 and stepped outside to enjoy the sunshine and 60+ degree weather, since I am used to the sub-freezing weather that we left back in Iowa. There is something about having that warm sun hit your skin when you know all your friends and family are back home shivering that makes it just a little bit sweeter. I started craving a cup of coffee, so I went to go inside to brew some and discovered that I had locked myself out of the condo. : /

I didn’t want to wake Jill, and it was a beautiful morning, so I sent Jill a text saying “Let me know when you wake up,” and set off towards the beach. I didn’t have any shoes on, but that didn’t matter since the sand was soft and fluffy. I just had to watch out for seashells and dead fish and my feet would be fine.

The tide was as low as I had seen it and there was a lot of additional sand and shells exposed. I waded in the water picking out some cool shells and enjoying the sunrise over the condos and buildings to the east. When I got bored of that, I headed back to the condo and just as I was sitting down on our outdoor furniture, Jill came out and sat with me. She had just woken up so it was perfect timing. Jill made us coffee and eggs, ham, and cheese on toast and we sat and relaxed as we enjoyed our breakfast.

Our plan for the morning was to go snorkeling, since we rented the gear around 3:00 the day before and it needed to go back by 3:00 today. We threw on some sunscreen and headed out to Point of Rocks. The water was cold and the air wasn’t quite to that “hot” level yet, so getting in was a bit uncomfortable. But the thing about being uncomfortable in cold water is that it only lasts a few seconds and then you adjust and it’s fine. I explored the water around the coast for a while but the visibility wasn’t much better than it had been the day before. I did see some fish and a lot of cool shells, but I got nervous only being able to see a few feet in front of me. I’d be swimming along and all of the sudden a large rock would be right in front of my face, so I didn’t snorkel long.

Jill never completely submerged herself in the cold water but she did wade out to Point of Rocks and we explored the millions of shells that blanketed the beach. We saw a few crabs and urchins along with the crazy amount of shells. I bet we spent at least an hour just walking along, looking at all the unfamiliar things along the oceanside. When we returned to Crescent Beach, we saw a guy that was tossing a net out towards a deep spot on the beach. He appeared to be netting bait fish to use for fishing later, but I never ended up asking him.

We started to get hungry so we headed in for lunch at the condo, making up some ham and cheese sandwiches with chips as our side. Since snorkeling was kind of a bust, we decided to take our gear back to Ride and Paddle early and while we were downtown, we shopped for souvenirs for our kids. We also stopped at a market to pick up some more cheese since we just finished off the cheddar we had bought earlier with our lunch.

We knew we would be heading to Lido Key the next day to kayak through the mangrove tunnels, so we just took it easy the rest of the afternoon. We mixed up a couple of our Siesta Tortoise drinks (pineapple juice, key lime spritzer, and Coconut Rum) and sat by the Siesta Sands pool. We talked to a family from Ohio for quite a bit learning about their family and the new born they had a few months ago. Their baby was born premature so she looked like a new born even though she was several months old.

When had had enough of the pool, we took showers and snacked on some strawberries, cucumbers, pita chips, and cheese. Jill was nervous about getting sun burned the next day on our kayak trip, so we rode back downtown to see if we could find her a sun shirt.

Once we had a nice sun shirt for Jill in hand, we decided to check out the Daquiri Deck. It appeared that we could catch the sun set from up their, but we actually never made it to the upper deck. We asked the bartender on the lower level how to get up to the deck and she convinced us that we should just get a drink with her and enjoy the live music on the lower level. We love live music, so we were easily convinced. We both bought a banana-strawberry daiquiri and sat down to enjoy the live music.

Upon leaving the Daquiri Deck, we noticed there was beach access right across from us so we grabbed our bikes and headed to the beach to watch the sunset, yet again. When we went to wash the sand off our bike tires near the condo, a little tortoise came out to visit us. He popped out from some vegetation near the beach shower and we followed him around for a bit before heading back to our condo. We had left over pizza from Pizza n Brew for dinner and watched The Office again before turning in early. We needed to wake up early the next day so we could grab an Uber to Lido Key for some kayaking.