Quarry Lane

Island Living

The idea behind the scene above, at Sunset Beach over on the west side of Captiva Island, is that if you are in fact going to eventually get buried alive, well damn it if it doesn't go better with a Tiki Hut glass of afternoon Chardonnay.

The wave runners here are nosed towards the medicinal waters off of Caya Costa, shelling mecca -- the next island on the great chain of barrier islands. The Land's End off of Captiva is a narrow channel, barely large enough for two cabin cruisers to pass each other, and on into the marina where the manatees poke their snouts up above waters in boat slips for Harbourside diners to see before they head into eat.

Habourside Restaurant, Land's End

When you walk along the north tip of Land's End, the name of this area resonates, here at the Red Herring Strait where you can see the location where some wishful thinkers once tried to build their dreams on essentially an unhabitable island. They add to the mystique of the possibility of living on a deserted island...across from a resort.

Under these same waters the bottle-nose dolphins thrive beautifully. It is shallow in these waters, only four and a half feet deep in all directions, so sharks do not thrive and the dolphins don't have to ward off

any major predator. On the dolphin Cruise, the Lady Chadwick, hard to believe, attracts our swimming friends under the ocean, because it provides a free wake to glide behind. Nine-five percent of all cruises spot dolphins.

For us, they appeared around halfway out to sea, so to speak, jumping up into the air along the side of the ship, flipping and cross-swimming as if true showmen. The captain told us to clap and howl when the surfaced – the dolphins are attracted to the sounds and the safety of the steady of direction of the large ship.