It’s been a little crazy the last few weeks as many of our northern neighbors are beginning to return to the marina to spend the winter here. We’re glad to see our friends return and the weekly dock parties have resumed.

Last Sunday, Randy and I took a bike ride down Fort Myers Beach to check out the Fort Myers Beach Marathon. The races were close to ending, but we decided to take the bikes up to the top of the Mantanzas Bridge that the runners were going over. From there, we had a gorgeous view of the back bay and island as well as the Gulf of Mexico. After that, we stopped for breakfast at Gulfshore Grill. On our pedal home, we came across the most tame group of cormorants sitting on some posts just waiting for me to take their photos.

On Friday, I found a Craigslist list ad for a few beach bikes. I’d been wanting a simple 1-speed beach cruiser with pedal brakes since they are more comfortable than my old mountain bike. Randy and I agreed I would get a new bike and he would use my mountain bike since it was much better than his bike.  Since my birthday is less than a month away, I’d told Randy he could get me the bike as my gift. We called about the bikes and visited the person’s home to view them. There was an old man who had hundreds of bikes of all kinds in his garage and 2 sheds. I began test riding a few of the cruisers and settled for a purple Shwinn Del Mar. He even threw in a basket for us.

Corey’s latest obsession has been surfing. He checks weather.com and swellinfo.com hourly and checks out about 4 different beach cams in the area every morning. So Saturday afternoon, he convinced us there were waves he could surf, and so we packed up the cooler and surf boards and headed to the Diamond Head Beach Resort. For some odd reason, the waves near the Diamond Head actually break and are generally larger. We also took Corey’s friend, Maddie, who has also shown a great interest in learning how to surf. We all had a great time at the beach.