December 2005 .........

Cocoa Beach: On a barrier island between the Atlantic Ocean and The Banana River, this city of 12,000 is located in the heart of Florida's Space Coast, and has played an important role in the history of the countries space program. The Cocoa Beach pier, established in 1962 is a historical landmark on the Florida space coast. The pier is 800 ft. long and houses several restaurants and gift shops. One must pay to access the pier from the restaurants to the end of the pier where most of the fishing takes place. The portion of the pier that has free access is over the beach, not the water.
Cocoa Beach was where the I Dream of Jeanie TV series was filmed.

Sarasota: The town was founded in the 1880's and in 1910 it began attracting some of Americas most wealthy. John Ringling of Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Baily Circus built a magnificent mansion on Sarasota Bay. In 1927 the circus winter quarters moved to Sarasota - branding the area a "Circus Town". Ringling used his circus elephants to help build the first bridge from the mainland to St. Armands Key. We stopped to see the larger than life, over 25 ft tall, statue of a sailor and nurse, called "Unconditional Surrender", that is located on the waterfront."His surprise kiss in NYC at the end of WWII symbolized the joy that the war was finally over". A newspaper article we found on the web indicated the statue was "temporary" and not all residents were pleased to have it in their town. We thought is was neat. Sarasota, from what we saw, appears to be a very pretty city. Note: 2006 - We have been told the statue is now gone.

Sanibel Island: One of the unique barrier islands of the world, having an East-West orientation when most islands are North-South. Hence, the island is gifted with great sandy beaches and an abundance of shells. The sand is so white and fine it reminds one of sugar. Sabibel and Captiva were formed as one island over six thousand years ago, as sediment that rose from the sea after being shaped by centuries of storm activity. It is believed Ponce de Leon discovered the island in 1513 while searching for his "fountain of youth". We heard the island was cut in two during one of the hurricanes, they were repairing it when we were there and driving wasn't a problem. This is the second time we've spent time on Sanibel, we love the area of the Casa Ybel Resort, built in the 1880's and still beautiful. Shelling on Sanibel is the best we've ever found and watching the sunset from the end of Captiva is also a must. While at the beach to watch the sunset, eat at the Mucky Duck. This area is one of Laurel's favorites.
Pictured Below: The causway to the island, it has since been replaced, it had gotten so bad they would only let big trucks go over at night. Beach scene, all the white on the left are shells. It's the best shelling area we have ever been to. Bottom left, a house still being repaired from the hurricane. Bottom right, Casa Yebel Resort - one of the necest we saw. We knew someone that worked there so got to use their beach (peitured above).

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