Red Tide

Friday morning I slept in, caught up on some work, and went for a short run in the 80 degree weather while Anthony was at early morning practice.

Once he was back we headed out to Ft. Myers beach - couldn't wait to lay out in this weather and swim in the ocean! After about 30 minutes of bummer to bummer traffic (apparently its always like this) we finally found a parking spot with direct beach access.

I decided to test out the water right away while Anthony went right to sleep. I was surprised to find hundreds of dead fish along the shore and a few still getting washed up onto the beach. There was also a solid line of algae I had to go through to be deep enough to swim. I probably looked ridiculous jumping over the algae piles and avoiding fish still fighting for their lives, but I finally made it a little deeper and swam around. Once out about 10 ft from shore, there were no problems. I found out later this is from Red Tide:

What is a Florida red tide?
A red tide is a higher-than-normal concentration of a microscopic alga (plant-like organisms). In Florida, the species that causes most red tides is Karenia brevis. This organism produces a toxin that can affect the central nervous system of fish. At high concentrations (called a bloom); the organisms may discolor the water. However, red tides are not always red. They can appear greenish, brownish, and even purple in color. The water can even remain its normal color during a bloom.

Beaches were still beautiful (More pictures below)

We spent a few hours at the ocean and then headed back a different way that took us past beautiful homes and downtown Ft. Myers.

Our drive, loving the palm trees

For supper we decided to go to a Mexican restaurant to celebrate national Margarita day. We met up with one of Anthony's teammates, his wife, beautiful 4 month old baby girl, and his aunt. Oddly enough, the aunt was from Kansas City so we easily chatted about the Midwest and where baseball has taken the couple. Last year alone, they lived in Arizona, Akron, Providence and California! Excited to have met such nice people to spend time with when Anthony is in the game.