Florida – Clearwater Beach

We chose a vacation in Florida mainly because of the nice beaches. This time we wanted to go to the Tampa area since we already visited Ft. Lauderdale. In front of the mainland are several islands which we could visit - all with nice white sand beaches! In the end, the price of the motels and the width of the beaches influenced our final decision where to stay. We also got a good car deal. We landed in the Tampa international airport and we took a shuttle to the St. Petersburg-Clearwater International airport, which is around 16 miles away. The taxi driver however had all the time in the world on the highway which made us a little upset since the charges are per mile and minute combined, but in the end, we saved $150 just because we got the rental car in St. Petersburg. Not bad!
 

People in Florida seemed to be very relaxed, maybe because of so many nice beaches and wonderful weather. The traffic jam on highway 60 which leads to Clearwater Beach Island where our motel was however is horrible. I think the reason for this is that Clearwater Beach has one of the biggest public parking available on the islands which means that as a result most locals will head for this beach whenever they can causing the traffic jam. At the beach, you can feel a nice cool breeze from the ocean and the warm sun. We found the weather in March/April is just perfect, but when you are on the mainland you do not feel the cool breeze and then you sweat baby! (Just like in Rio de Janeiro, a cidade maravilhosa!). The motel we stayed in was about two blocks away from the beach so we could easily walk to the beach. We had a special visitor at our motel - Charlie (on the right picture).
 

Every morning, and when we were not too exhausted from the trips also in the evening, we went to the beach. As you can see in the picture, the beach there is wide, long with white sand. Once hitting the beach we normally went down (south) the beach which is around 1 mile long to Pier 60. On the way to the pier, Gizela loved to look for sea shelves, her new hobby. In fact, in some parts of the beach you had to watch out walking barefoot on the beach since it was flooded with tiny sea shelves close to the water. Gizela found very beautiful sea shelves. She was lucky to find one that was as big as her hand south of the pier in the water (the picture shows her just south of the pier). She likes to put them inside a glass vase with some corals or stones which does not only look really good but also brings good memories. Since we went in the morning and evening we also had no problems with the sun (Gizela is always worried I get a sun burn), but the water was a little cold. Nevertheless, Frank went swimming twice and of course we walked in the water looking for sea shelves or just for relaxation.
 

At the pier, we enjoyed watching the sunset and looking around what the market had to offer. We saw a lot of handcrafted goods like pictures, jewelry, fantasy figures etc. Besides the merchandise, there was also a "fire eating" show. The showman said he was once in a music video and that he used to surf in Hawaii. Since there are not many waves is Florida he started up his show because he had a lot of free time. Anyhow, his show was quite good. Besides "eating" the fire he also did some good jokes. During the show he requests some items from the people around him, a cigarette lighter and a camera. Both items he puts in his big chest, the cigarette lighter to a bunch of other lighters he collected throughout his life. At some point he opens the chest again and throws the camera back to whoever gave it to him. Normally that camera falls on the ground but it's only a plastic camera :-) During the show he also tries to eat way to big burning sticks and then yells 'doesn't anyone try to hold me back?'.
 

Since we both love animals we also went to two aquariums and a bird sanctuary. The first aquarium that we went to was the Clearwater Marine Aquarium on the same island. We were actually on the way to the Florida Aquarium but due to traffic jam we decided to go to this aquarium. It's a nonprofit organization that takes the income to rescue and rehabilitate marine animals. The highlights in this aquarium were the sting ray font, the sharks (picture) and the dolphin. We also were impressed by the the huge turtles. Of course, we can not forget to write about the fishes that were very colorful and exotic. Gizela loved to watch the dolphin for quite some time and of course it was also fun to touch the sting rays that have a very soft skin. Coming out of this aquarium, we had quite high expectations for the Florida Aquarium, but even though it is much bigger, it did not impress me either.

The Suncoast Seabird Sanctuary is the largest wild-bird hospital in North America which was founded in 1971. It tries to rescue and treat injured wild birds and later release them back into the wild whenever possible. Most wild birds there are pelicans and they get hurt by cars, get entangled in monofilament fish line or hurt by swallowed baited fish hooks. Many people also feed birds with filleted fish carcasses which can also kill them. When we came to this place a bird was yelling "hello" to us but we couldn't make him talk again. There are many different kind of birds there but most of them are pelicans. We really liked the pelicans, they get so used with people that you really can come close. They are all around here, even on the beach. Gizela was a little afraid of getting so close to the pelicans for a picture and in fact later we found out that they snap at you when you come too close, but nothing happened to us and the pictures are quite stunning.
 

We also did a "Dolphin Encounter" tour. Dolphins are very common in the channel that runs between the Clearwater Beach Island and the mainland. This tour was of course for spotting those dolphins. Frank is always very concerned about animals safety and comfort. While we were on the boat, he wondered how the dolphins could handle the noise the boats were making, especially because the boats were old. Dolphins, like many other sea animals, depend a lot on the hearing but all they hear in Florida is engine noise since the water transports sound very well. Maybe they do not hear the sound well any more!
 

Of course, Tampa area has also nice parks and a botanical garden - and who doesn't want to see some alligators? At the Taylor Park we also saw our first alligator in the Tampa area and lots of turtles in the water. At the Sawgrass Lake Park we saw more alligators, to some of them we went really close, but since they were taking a sunbath and looked not very hungry we figured chances for a bite are very low. Ah - bite - at the Taylor Park we witnessed a bird eating a baby turtle. Gizela got very upset but in nature the strongest survives and the weaker one becomes food and the stupid one loses his foot. Yeah, that is right :-) We watched on TV a report about a guy who went surfing in a prohibited area because of sharks. He was about 17 years old and did not care for the sign and went surfing anyway. Well, a shark went towards him or possibly the opposite and the man ended up getting a bite from the shark. To make the story short, he lost one of his feet. He was very grateful for not dying and regretted going surfing in a prohibited area. I just thought this is the kind of news to keep in memory because warning signs do protect us. Talking about warning signs, in the parks are many signs asking people to not feed the alligators - some people lost their hands. They also advice people to not walk by the alligators with little dogs - guess why!
 

At the Taylor Park (I believe) we saw a huge sea shelve stuck in the ground of the trail. Gizela wanted to dig it out but it was fruitless. When we walked a few steps more we saw another huge sea shelve in the ground, and there somebody else tried to get it out too. The botanical garden was very nice too: tropical vegetation all around! Even though they say watch for alligators, we didn't see any, but we saw a impressive statue that was made out of sea shelves. In fact, even the walkways in Florida often have sea shelves mixed into the cement like in Germany often there are tiny stones mixed into the cement of walkways.
 

On the flip side, we went to St. Petersburg pier to see the Russian submarine and the HMS Bounty that was stationed there, but the Russian submarine was bought by some actor for a movie and the HMS Bounty was sailed to another harbor for repair. Too bad, it would have been great. We also did some other trips that were not that great like the Fort Desoto Park. Anyway, in total this vacation was great and you can see more pictures here.