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.