Trip to Turtle Beach

One of the many nice things about living in the Tampa Bay area is that some great camping locations are very close to home.   Turtle Beach Campground, located on Siesta Key, in Sarasota County is 2 hours from home.

With all of the miles and miles of shoreline on the Gulf Coast of Florida, there are only 3 campgrounds that are on the beach south of Tampa.  One of these is Turtle Beach (or TB for the rest of this blog post).  It is owned and operated by the County of Sarasota.  The Campsites are pretty close to each other, but the walk to the beach is easy and it is a very nice beach.

Here is a view of the campground.

Scout tucked into her home for the night.

On the way to TB we decided to wander down and look at a couple of beach communities.  We purchased the book "BeacHunters Florida Gulf Beaches and Access Guide" by David Mcree.  This is a very good book that provides a thorough description of the beaches and beach communities on the Gulf Coast.  With this book in hand we went exploring.

We have various friends that have stayed at Anna Maria Island,  Longboat Key and Casey Key.  We wanted to see these first hand.  Here are my impressions.  Anna Maria, is kind of a funky beach community with a GREAT beach at Manatee County Public Beach.  Crystal clear water, great white sand, easy parking.

 Longboat Key itself is kind of stuffy.  Serious money here which often equates to private gated estates.  The residents have worked very had to give the illusion of beach access.  There are little blue signs that say "Public Beach Access".  However, there are no parking spots within miles of these access points.

Lido Key is next down the line.  It kind of resembles Longboat Key from a residential real estate perspective, but has one notable difference.  Ted Sperling Park at South Lido Beach.  This is a very nice beach with tons of shaded parking.  Thumbs up to the fine folks at Lido Beach.

Casey Key.  Casey Key is like Longboat Key on steroids.  Serious money here.  I have found in life that sometimes spending excessive amounts of cash does not necessarily enrich life, but tends to serve more to simply isolate people.  That sums up Casey Key.  However, at the far south end of Casey Key there is a tremendous beach.  Nokomis beach.  Great pavilion, crystal clear water, great bathrooms and outdoor showers.

Well back to Turtle Beach.  This beach is famous for it's sunsets.  The last time that we were here, they signaled sundown by blowing a conch shell.  Well that did not happen this time.  Possibly that job was determined to be non-essential and furloughed as part of the government shut down ;)

Here are some pics of the sunset.

And breaking Dawn the next day...

Well that wraps up this short trip.  Home for a week as we get hardwood floors installed and then it is off to Disney for a few days.

Scout is Off to turtle beach this morning.

Well in order to continue our flat out dead run in seeing this area, we are firing up Scout this morning and heading to Turtle Beach.

We found this place last winter.  It is one of the few places that you can camp right on the beach.  Yes, as long and irregular as the gulf is, there are only a few places that you can camp right on the beach.

We are only staying one night.  We have to be back on Monday morning.  Our last bit of carpet is being replaced that day with hard wood laminate.

Here is a youtube video of Turtle beach, we did not film the video, but you can see what it looks like from this.  As you can see the sunsets are stunning.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Z5cEUrG1HU

Shell Key

Yesterday, we took a boat out of Treasure Island and proceeded down the ICW to Shell Key.  What a beautiful little island.  This island is only accessible by boat, so the crowds are thin.  The water is bahamas like clear.  See for yourself.

This is a view from the island looking northeast.  If you squint really hard, while looking at the photo, you will be able to see the Hotel Don Cesar on St. Pete Beach.

 We anchored about 20 feet off of the beach in about 4 feet of water.  As we were setting the anchor, we watched a school of small manta rays, flitting about the boat.

We enjoyed a picnic lunch aboard the pontoon and then set out for a little walk and shell hunt on the beach.  While walking the beach we spotted a large black shape about 50 feet of the shore.  This creature had to be at least 6 feet long.  It was moving slowly parallel to the shore and leaving a wake.  Being newbies to this area, we surmised that it had to be a large shark.  No more shore wading for us.

We walked a little farther and saw another large shape.  It however breached the water and snorted.  Ah Ha!  It was a manatee swimming in the gulf.  I waded and swam out to about the 5 foot depth level and was about 10 feet from the creature.  I gave it a chance to approach me, but it did not, so I retreated to the shore.  The water temp was about 80 degrees, so it was a very nice swim, even if the manatee did not want to come play.

Here is the view of the beach looking west.

 After this, we took the boat, a 23 foot pontoon with a 70hp Yamaha outboard, out into the gulf.  We passed out the channel till we reached the channel entrance marker and turned north.  We set a course of 345 degrees and opened up the throttle.  With a light chop of 1 foot or less we crossed the 6 miles of open gulf in about 20 minutes.  We reached the marker for the entrance to the John's pass entrance and entered the bay.  It felt a little strange having a pontoon boat out in the open gulf 3 miles or so off of shore.

This area continues to reveal to us very cool and little used areas.

After the Florida Move our first little Scout Jaunt

We have been very busy over the last month and one half.  Closed on the lake house.  Moved full time to Florida.  Looked at boats.  Furnished the Lanai.  Looked at boats. Took a 4 day trip to Daytona Beach.  Where we had great sunrise views.

 Looked at boats.  Selected a contractor to convert the remaining carpeted flooring to hard wood.  Joined a boat club.  Took a 4 day trip to visit friends in  Ft. Lauderdale, the Keys, and Naples.  Here is the view from our friends condo in Key Colony Beach.

Passed through the Big Cypress Preserve on the Tamiami Trail.

Used the boats at the boat club.

And got one of the worst haircuts of my life.  I have not had a buzz cut like this since the summer that I was 7 years old.


So now Scout is heading out this weekend for a little jaunt to one of our favorite beach camping areas.  Turtle Beach near Venice (Florida that is).