Beach Bound & Shark Found.

Well, I WAS beach bound.... YESTERDAY.

We had a stranger take this pic... She barely got us in.

Some of my friends and I decided a beach trip was overdue. So we planned it. 5-21-11 Anna Maria Island. And that's what we did :) 

We met up at my church at 8am, and followed each other out in three car loads. Granted, we could have all fit in two, BUT different people wanted to leave at different times. My car had to leave by 2pm as I needed to get home so I could go see one of my friends daughters perform in a dance recital (too cute I might add). My friend H drove my car, as this past week has been a really bad one as far as my pain goes with my back and neck. When I have such stiffness it causes me to have dizzy spells, kinda like vertigo, and that's not the best when you are driving. SO, thank you H for driving! I was MORE than happy to let her drive. I truly am not a fan of driving and am perfectly fine being a passenger any day.

Anyways, back to the beach. My car reached AMI first, so we pulled off at the area where we planned to get our picture taken and waited for car two and three to arrive. They really weren't that far behind. Once we'd all gathered, I attempted to find someone to take our picture. I asked a large group of grumpy ladies. They volunteered one of their friends, whom didn't seem too thrilled to be doing us such a huge favor, but she came none the less, and snapped a few pics... most of which didn't even have any of us in them. We got a leg shot. Haha. BUT, thankfully, the one above came out, though my friend DaisyJo barely made it in the photo. Check out her blog to see some more pics from AMI! :)

The water was perfect. Not too warm, but definitely not too cold. And there were even decent waves going on, which you don't always find on the Gulf. Most of the gang hopped in the water right away, though I stayed on shore with a new found friend, S, whom I met just this year. We were talking back problems for a good while, as she suffers from a back ailment as well. As we were talking, we were also watching a guy to the left of us fish...Our friends came back out of the water, and we were all laying around when I looked over and saw that fisher guy had caught a baby shark. Dun dun dun. Now I thought it was a hammerhead, because that's what it looked like. So I called to my friends "hey, look, he caught a baby shark" they all ran over to investigate further, and this picture was taken of my friend H holding the shark, before she let it go back in the water.

Baby Bonnethead Shark. We released it.

 As it turned out, fisher guy informed us it was a bonnethead shark, which I looked up, and read that they are NOT a threat to humans. Apparently before he caught that baby, my friends had actually got out of the water because as he was fishing, he saw a bigger shark swim by, and called to them "hey, just wanted to let you know I saw a three footer swim by, and he was heading your way" EEEEEEK!! Say WHAT?! I am SO glad I wasn't in the water at that time. I very well may have pee'd my pants if I'd been told that. I don't care if Bonnetheads are nice or not, swimming with sharks is scary business... business I don't want any part of. And who even knows IF the three footer was a bonnethead?

Surprisingly after the baby shark incident BUT before I knew about the three footer, I make some splashes in the water, and I had such a fun time doing it. It felt great. Being in the water is very therapeutic for back problems. I so wish I had a pool. 

I made sure I got out of the water in time to dry off a bit, as I am NOT a fan of driving home in wet clothes. I actually changed when we stopped for Ice Cream at Banana Cabana's this amazing little joint in AMI. :) I had a double scoop, one of Chocolate Delight, and one Mint Chocolate Chip... topped with, of course, fudge. Aahh. So delish. Sadly, I couldn't finish it all. Too rich for me.

We made it home in good timing and I had plenty of time to take a shower and even relax for a bit before I headed off to see Miss K's recital. She was simply adorable. I wish I'd been able to snap a good picture of her. I will have to see if the friend I went with got any.

So, that was MY Saturday. Hope yours was just as fun! :)

XOXO