Liz and Ben do Anna Maria Island 2026

We spent our last whole day in Florida fishing, sunbathing, playing golf and eating out at the restaurant, 59. Ben caught lots of fish and the sun was hot. We played golf on our own and today the result was a tie. Afterwards we ate a very good meal.  We have checked in for a flights tomorrow. We will be sorry to leave here as it has been a lovely relaxing holiday and hopefully we will make it back again next year.

We started to tidy up the apartment as we will sadly be leaving here on Sunday morning. It was hot and sunny as usual so I did a bit of sun bathing and Ben did some early fishing, catching around 20 pin head and trout fish.. After lunch we went and had our last 'double scoop' ice cream where we met an English family who had just flown from England and called in here on their way to Orlando. They seemed impressed with Anna Maria Island. We then went and did some last minute shopping. Whilst Ben was doing a bit more fishing, our neghbour Diane from next door appeared and wanted to know when we were leaving.  We had quite a long chat about everything, when Diane said my unattended fishing rod was heading for the water!!  I quickly grabbed it and eventually landed a fighting catfish.  Unfortunately for the catfish it had swallowed the hook and despite my best efforts I was unable to extract it - best not to describe subsequent actions!   We have arranged golf for to...

Our penultimate round of golf was played at Manatee County this afternoon. When we arrived at the first tee there was a 2 ball in front of us and no one else about. We noticed after we teed off that there was another couple waiting. When we got to the 5th hole, the two ball in front of us were being let through by a six ball group of men. We were behind them when the starter came along in his buggy and said that he was going to hold us back as they were so busy they had to let the 6 ball go together. We would just have to wait behind them. We were then joined by the couple behind us, Dale and Kathy, from Ohio. It turned out that Kathy was a good golfer but Dale sent his ball in any direction into the trees and water. The 6 ball eventually let us through so we didn't have anyone in front of us and then we finished the round quite quickly. When we arrived at the 3rd hole par 3, there were 4 men in the water manually looking for lost balls.  I casually advised them that we had seen a ...

Our AVIS hire car arrangement booked with BA was for 4 weeks, so today we had to go to Tampa airport, hand in the car we had been using and collect a new one. The car exchange went without any problems but the traffic was very busy both going and coming. We decided to go and visit the sunken gardens in St Petesburg on the way. The gardens were purchased in 1911 when it was a marshy sinkhole. Three generations of the family turned the land into a well known attraction with tropical palms, orchids, flamingos, parrots, koi carp and waterfalls. When we had walked around the gardens we were sitting on a seat and a squirrel jumped on me and tried to read the brochure I was looking at. It must have thought I had some food! We then went on toTampa airport and arrived home having exchanged the car by about 7.30pm. Not sure if this is a black bee?? Flamingo doing some pruning! and more flamingos One of many Geckos basking in the sun Mum in her 'garden hat' Koi carp Kookaberra Macaws Orch...

Another round of golf at Manatee County golf course in the sunshine although there was more breeze today. We were joined by Phil who we instantly recognised as being English. It turned out he was a retired RAF Vulcan pilot who lives near Lincoln but spends 4 or 5 months each year in his house near Manatee golf club. His wife also plays golf but can't at the moment because of a wrist injury. His golf wasn't very good but he said he didn't play in competitions back in England because of this. Ben and I both played better than him. We are beginning to get to know the course and where to try and send our shots. It is a nice course with some hazards, which we have learnt to try and avoid and some good holes as well. We saw a number of different birds - the wild live is laways interesting. Roseate Spoonbill Crackle Stork in a tree - we think!!

We have had a quiet day today. It was hot and sunny with very little wind. We must have caught up with all the vitamin D which we didn't get in England over the winter. We went for a short walk this afternoon and drooled at the very expensive 'gin palaces', all of which appeared to be being fettled, I suppose ready for summer cruising.  Liz fancied this one - circa $5,000,000!! The boat from the house opposite leaving for an afternoon cruise

Ben had some success at last with his fishing this morning as he caught a sea trout which we should be able to eat tomorrow evening. We played golf again this afternoon at Buffalo Creek as Ben has a meeting tomorrow. We started off playing with a young man, Josh, who was accompanied by his 9 year old daughter, Sienna. She did not play and by the time we got to the twelfth hole he had to stop as he said she was getting bored. It was a very slow round as we had to wait on nearly every shot. While waiting we saw some interesting wild life. We saw 2 cranes which were showing off their mating dances. They ended up 'kissing' which involved  clattering their beaks together. We also saw a very large alligator basking by the side of a lake. It kept it's eye on us and looked as if it could rise up on to it's feet and run at us if he wanted to. Just as we were finishing the 18th a woodpecker flew from the ground to a tree and was tapping away at the bark. We didn't finish our ...

Must have smelt blood - too big to mess with!   We played golf at Manatee again today. The wind had dropped and the sun shone all afternoon so it was very pleasant. Our partner for the first 9 holes was a canadian man who could out talk Ben! We were joined on the back 9 with another canadian, as his partner was only playing 9 holes. The 2 canadian men seemed to be from the same Toronto area as each other so they talked together about places they both knew. We were left to play on our own. They were both good golfers. Ben did some fishing before we played - he was soon joined by his 'pet' heron who was suitable rewarded!! Hungry Heron happily fed!!

Ben had a golf club meeting via Teams this morning so I went for a walk and looked in some of the local shops. This afternoon we went to the ice cream shop, "Two Scoops" and enjoyed our ice creams. It was warmer today but still quite windy. Our American neighbours, who live permanently in the house next door to where we are staying, gave us tickets for the latest local amateur dramatic play. We had met them last year and at the end of our stay we gave them all our left over bits that we couldn't bring back to England. Andy has quite a bad dose of shingles and didn't feel like going to the theatre so they offered the tickets to us. The production team stage about 5 plays a year and the one we went to see was called "Second Time Around". We weren't sure if we would understand the american accent or the jokes as it was a comedy, but we got the jokes and innuendoes and it was very funny. It was about a retired widow and widower who were going to live togethe...

Yesterday was a quiet day for us. The sun was shining but the wind was chilly and quite strong.  We spent some time in AVIS in Bradenton seeing if we could merge our 2 car hires, which in the event we were unable to.  We were trying to avoid having to drive to Tampa Airport to change our car as we have 2 bookings.  We have come to the conclusion that the cheapest option is to change the cars - hey ho. Today the wind had dropped a little and the temperatures rose. It was much more pleasant. Ben was more successful with his fishing. We played golf at Manatee. We were joined today by an american couple who were from Indiana but living for 6 months in this area in their camping trailer. They said it was an eye opener living in the snug conditions. They are due to return to Indianna soon and were a bit concerned about towing their trailer over mountains in the snow. Steve played golf from the red tees and sometimes hit the ball a long way occasionly in the right direction.Sall...

We woke this morning to a cold, windy but sunny day. It has been sunny all day but playing golf we needed all the golf clothing we had brought with us. Ben did a little fishing and was surprised to see out hungry heron was back.  He was fed 2 fish in quick succession and no doubt went to bed satisfied! We played today at Buffalo Creek. It took us ages to drive to leave the island, we are not sure why but  think it may be as it was so cold people were leaving the beach area. We were 10 minutes late arriving at the course but they were quite happy to let us go out when we arrived. We played on our own and found the wind made both direction and distance difficult- neither of us played very well. We played the quickest round to date taking just over 3 and a half hours to complete the round. Tomorrow should be a little warmer but still cold for the time of year. Our hungry heron is back Liz is "Tee'd off" as we were driving from the same Tee location - equality reigns!!

It has been very windy today so has felt cooler. In fact the temperature was the same but the wind made it feel cooler. That said it was very comfortable sitting out on the deck with a breeze blowing. I went for a walk this afternoon along the Bayside coast and the edge of the water was as calm and clear as a millpool with quite a few people swimming in it. We didn't go to the other side of the island to see what the sea was like there but I expect it would have been very windy on the beach.  We had a thunderstorm pass over for about an hour in the early evening. Tomorrow is forecast to be much cooler so maybe we will need to wear more clothes for golf! Cloud formation as the thunderstorm approached

We were booked to play golf this afternoon at Buffalo Creek. When we left here we could see black clouds over the area we were travelling to. As we pulled into the carpark of the golf club it was just starting to rain and everyone was coming off the course as there was thunder about. We went into the shop and were allowed a rain check so could play the course another day. We sat in the carpark and it continued to pour with rain for about half an hour. We debated whether to hang on and wait for the rain to stop but the sky looked black all around so we decided to give up and come home. We had driven only about a mile away and everywhere was dry so the heavy rain was very local. It was the annual St Patricks Day procession on Anna Marie Island and we just managed to get back before the roads closed for the procession. We walked to a view point and waited for the procession to start. There were lots of people about all wearing green. The procession eventually went past us with everyone in...

 We decided to have a day out today so we visited the Mote science education aquarium. It is situated on the campus of the Sarasota university. When we eventually arrived there (the traffic was bad) we found it was very busy with lots of families. We had booked on line so were able to go straight in. There were 3 floors of  displays of every kind of marine animal and fish particularly local to this area. There were very large tanks, some of which you could walk under, with fish, snails, jellyfish, urchins and animals- penguins, terrapins, turtles and sea otters. We walked around for about an hour and a half and Ben took lots of photos. It was just after lunch when we came out so we found a Macdonalds to get something to eat. The portions seemed much bigger than UK so we didn't need any more food for the rest of the day. We had to call in Publix on the way home and that was crowded too with people. We had a job to find a parking space and one of the shop workers said she had ne...

 Another mainly cloudy day with a few breaks for the sun to shine, but warm again. Ben had a fruitful fish this morning. He caught a fish nearly every time he cast the line into the water. The fish he caught were mainly the same type so I told him he was catching the same fish every time! We played golf today again at Manatee. We played on our own and I actually managed to play to my handicap today-I think course knowledge is beginning to help at last. It was fairly busy and we had to wait on nearly every shot we played. We have some new neighbours above us-4 young men this time. They are quite quiet at the moment but who knows if this will continue? The owner of the house has asked if we want to come again next year at the same rate as this year. I think we will probably say that we would like to come and hope that we survive until then! Raccoons up to no good  small alligator Terrapin basking on the cart path

 The weather has been strange here today. It started off sunny with clouds, just as warm as usual. By lunch time the clouds had built up and at 4pm it poured with rain for a couple of hours. When we went out later it was a bit cooler. We seem to need a day's rest between our golf days so today was a rest day. Apart from a trip to Publix at lunchtime we haven't done a lot. Ben caught a couple of fish and while it was raining here we were able to watch the golf from Sawgrass on television.

There was a pleasant breeze today although the temperature was still in the 80sF. We played golf at Manatee again this afternoon. Our partners today were 2 'Johns', and I had some company as one of them played off the red tees! They both hit the ball well although we noticed that the John who played off the red tees hit his balls into the woods or water but put his replacements in the middle of the fairway and didn't count an extra shot! They only played 9 holes, so we played the back 9 holes on our own. Ben was frustrated with his golf today as he couldn't chip or putt as he wanted to. Watery grave Liz fishing it out - I had a similar problem! Terrapin taking the rays! Tight par 3  - both shot a 4!

We decided to do a Walmart shop today but had to think about the best time to go. Walmart is on the mainland, and each day at the moment between 10am and 2pm there is a queue to get on to the Island. We ended up going just before lunch. We didn't buy anything perishable because we weren't sure how long it would take us to get back here. One of the things we needed was a brush and dustpan as the one here has been left outside and is now so rotten that the handle doesn't fit to the brush. The floors are all tiled and there is no hoover so brushing is the only way to clear the sand etc from the floor. We eventually found the brushes in Walmart and bought one as well as some non perishable items. As it turned out, the journey back to the island was not too bad.We had to wait for the drawbridge to open and shut but the traffic queue wasn't too bad. We then had to call in at Publix to get the perishable goods (we should have remembered to take the cool box with us then we wou...

We put the clocks an hour forward on Saturday night so are now on summer time. It has given us an hour longer of daylight in the evenings, which enables us to get 18 holes in comfortably starting after 2.00 pm. We have had another day with temperatures up into the 80sF. We played golf this afternoon at Buffalo Creek. We played with two american men ?stev and Tim)who were in the area for 6 months and 3 months respectively. We played quite quickly for a 4 ball on an American course, but were conscious that there was a 2 ball behind us who played up pretty close to us on a couple of occasions. I didn't play as well today but felt that the course needed a bit of tlc. Some of the greens were vey bumpy and had pitch marks and divots filled with sand. We have some new neighbours upstairs which includes a young boy who, since we got back from golf, has spent his time  running up and down the wooden floor which must make a nice sound to him.  He is still running about after 9pm so hope...