Pelican Bay

Departure was delayed this morning since Spike decided to disappear on a morning stroll.  Upon looking for and calling him for over an hour, he finally decided to appear out of nowhere once we ignored him.  Therefore at 9:30 we left Paradise Marina where we had a lovely visit with old friends and made new ones.
Most of the afternoon was spent on the wide open Pine Island Sound.  We finally turned off of it to anchor in Pelican Bay for our first time, despite it being a popular anchorage.  Thanks to the guidance and waypoints from the Bishops, we are way up in a cove close to Punta Blanca Island where not too many boats dare go.  Immediately upon our arrival Ray got the dinghy down so we could go explore another small cove where Dr. Bishop promised we would see lots of manatee.  Just about the time Ray said sarcastically out loud "Sure, lots of manatee!", several popped their noses, tails and backs out of the water.  We spent quite a bit of time just watching several manatee look like they were wrestling, even seeming to have each other in head locks at times.
Once we decided we were hungry, we realized that neither of us brought our shoes in our rush to go look for manatee.  Ray decided we better go back to the boat to get them since it was a long dinghy ride to Cabbage Key only to find out we needed shoes.  Good thing we did as the sign at the bottom of the steps on the way in indicated no service without them.  Come to find out though it didn't matter.  There was a fishing tournament going on there, so no outside guests were allowed.
With that the case, we were hoping to catch some better fish than the bluefish we caught prior to our arrival.  Ended up nothing better or legal was caught although there was quite the variety, including a trout, a lady fish and an ugly lizard looking fish like we caught in the keys. 
Linda decided to try some more fishing while Ray cooked breakfast for dinner.  Nothing but a few catfish were landed on that effort.