Sunrise across the Pine Island Sound

December 12th out for a morning fishing trip and we were met with these beautiful natural scenes.  Caught a lot of small grouper but a few boats around were trolling for them and caught several legal grouper.  I looked all over for my good chartruese plug and couldn't find it.  Oh well.

November 4, 2017

Haven't been out to the island for a few weeks and the water and surroundings are stunning.  The color has come back after the release of water from Lake "O" and the rain from the hurricane.

Had a great walk on the beach this morning.  Here is a picture I took from the deck at Stardance a few minutes ago.

Eclipse of the Moon 2017

Here is a table of the times across the U.S,

Couple of hours resting at the pool

Thursday, August 17

Suzanne and I finally got to take a break by the pool.  Very relaxing.

Donaldson Family visit North Captiva, June 2017

Here is a sample of the fun the family had while staying at Stardance this past June.

Vacation guests get free dolphin show

Our guests at Stardance July 8-15  (Porterfield's) spent time at the airport beach and caught this dolphin performing for them.  The kids thought it was amazing.  Dolphins visit and give birth to their babies here from Spring through late summer.

Middleton's catch fish

Our guests at Moondance the Middleton's had a great visit this last week June 25-July 2 with fishing and beach time.  Here is their catch.

July 1 Sunrise

Going to be a great 4th of July

Update on island time

We have had our rainy season start 2 weeks ago and will probably last for 2 more.  It has been mostly sunny and nice as the weather has been moving along the I75 corridor from Naples north.

This is todays look at the weekend Friday, June 16.

Manatee at the dock

Over the memorial day holiday I went to the wharf to bring back our fishing rods and wash down the boat.  After I finished, I was winding up the hose when this manatee went under the dock in front of me.  It came out beside our boat and looked to be about 14' long.

A great sunrise this morning.

Great Memorial Day weekend

Suzanne and I spent our Memorial Day at Stardance while getting the finishing touches on the house for our next guests arriving this Sunday.

We did finally take some time for ourselves to shell, fish and relax.  Only once did we have a small adventure.  While boarding our boat, "Shall We Dance"

I

I boarded the boat and picked up the ladder and it fell out of my hand to sink to the bottom of 5' of water.  Good news it was clear, so  I jumped in the water to retrieve it.  Turned around to find the boat moving around the anchor out to deeper water where it was dropped.  I got to the boat but because of the depth of the water and my elderly age could not lift myself into the boat. We were hailed a boater, Randy and Caroline Jones, t and they rafted up to ours allowing me to use their ladder and then cross over to our boat.  We looked for the ladder spotted it and marked it on the GPS.  Tired and with a few scrapes we headed back to the house on the island.

Next morning near low tide we headed back out to find and retrieve the ladder. We finally located it and tossed the spare anchor close to it.  It didn't hold and we lost the ladder again.  We searched for about 45 minutes finding and losing
it.  Finally, the anchor dug in close and we tried all of our idea of retrieving it but to no avail.  Even the cast net wouldn't catch it.  I tried pulling our anchor across the ladder to see if it would hook it.  This did not work and also it lost its hold in the sand.  Fortunately, we had dropped the main anchor as well but with an offshore wind it pushed us away from the spot.

A group of people were walking on the beach and we hailed them to see if they would assist.  Yes, but we couldn't locate it.  We thanked the new residents to the island, the Murray's and let them go.  We pulled up the main anchor and decided to search again.  Suzanne spotted it, I dropped the main anchor and tossed the spare right on top of the ladder this time.  Did not try to set it this time.  We called out to our beach friends that were now a little up the beach for help and they graciously came back and this time retrieved the ladder.

We are now shopping for a new spare anchor.

Good day on the water May 16 2017

It was a beautiful day on the water.  Calm water and good fishing.

White bait showed up in the pass early evening with 8" large bait.

Guy with a nice non keeper Grouper

Patrick with a larger but still not a keeper Grouper.

VRBO New Fee structure

We recently sent this email to our guests the past couple of years:

You are receiving this email because you have been a valued rental guest at our home (Moondance or Stardance) on North Captiva, FL.

VRBO (Vacation Rental by Owner) has changed their policies and require us to use them for our billing purposes.  This not only increases our cost for credit card use it increases your cost due to the administrative fee they charge. 

We can however book with you directly.  If you should decide to stay with us in the future please contact us direct. Since you are a valued guest we will wave the collection of the security deposit for damages.

Charles Brazik

Mobile: 239-249-1003

Email: brazik@gmail.com

Suzanne Brazik

Mobile: 239-851-8749

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Email: sbrazik@gmail.com

Guest Charlie Boyle's pics of 2017 visit

Frequent guest Charlie Boyle and his family visited North Captiva May 2017.  He sent me some of his pictures and I have selected a few of them for this post.  If you are planning on visiting North Captiva these may give you an idea of our beautiful island. You can see more of Charlie's great pictures on his flicker site, https://www.flickr.com/photos/charlieboyle999/albums

North Captiva Sunrise

North Captiva Sunrise May 8, 2017

North Captiva Sunset while this catamaran sails by.

Nice break from working today.  North Captiva sunset.

Grandkids have fun with pool toys

Thanks to our guests the Snooks who left these pool toys for the rest of our guests to enjoy.

Manatee

While fishing in Roberts Bay, North Captiva we were presented with 8 manatees. This one like the boat.  It stayed by the boat for 20 minutes.

Easter Sunrise service on North Captiva

 Easter Sunrise service was attended by a full house in the seats and others sitting in their golf carts.  Sunrise was spectacular

Good fishing in North Captiva and Pine Island Sound

Returning guest Jack Noonan reports fishing good in Captiva Pass this past week.  Caught snook, trout, the grouper in the picture and had a great trip.  Hope to see you again soon.  He also reported that his brother in law caught good size trout on the fly rod.

Windy day yesterday.

Got to spend time with the Lee family while taking care of an outage. Great family having fun on the island.

Sunrise and Sunset at Moondance of North Captiva

Allison Perry took these photos just the other day.

Top photo is a great sunrise as seen from the Observation Deck.  The bottom photo is a sunset taken from Observation Deck.

Fishing was good as well last week.

Drone Use on North Captiva

The Upper Captiva Civic Association has asked all owners who rent their homes to inform their rental guests about the use of drones.

The FAA stipulates that there should be no use of drones within 2.5 miles of an active airport.

We have an active airport "Salty Approach" located on the north end of the island. All homes on the island are within that limit except the ones on the South end near red fish pass.

Please adhere to this request. Thanks

Kingfish North Captiva

The Kingfish have been biting in shallow water.  These fish caught by the Jonas Family staying at Stardance on North Captiva Island.