After the Storm - 18 Jan 2015

The live starfish were doing this 'tent' thing.

Amazing how stuff attaches itself to other stuff.

Its been a week of rain, wind, and tornadoes in Naples and it has definitely given us time to ponder the issues of living in an area where weather is potentially deadly.

Early Sunday morning my cell phone started to flash and an announcement that "a tornado is scheduled to touch down in this area" loudly pulled me out of a sound sleep. As soon as I had my wits about me, I realized that the wind was howling outside and rain was pounding on the windows. When I came out of the bedroom, Wayne was already in front of the television watching the weather tracker station and true enough, the tornado was headed for a number of subdivisions near us. By the time we discussed whether or not we should get out or where we should bunker down, it had passed. Clearly we don't have much experience with this kind of weather. Snowstorms....yes. Tornadoes...no. It certainly did some damage in the city and some surrounding areas but other than lots of palm fronds on the streets, nothing serious near us.

We decided we would head for Barefoot Beach and see what treasures the tide might have brought in. It was quite cool but the sun was shining and we bundled up and headed out.

Access to the beach is reached by driving through a multi-million dollar, gated community. The houses are 4-5000 sq ft and so beautiful. How the developer ever convinced potential owners that hundreds of cars driving through their community, over 1 1/2 miles of interlock brick streets would be okay is beyond me! I'm sure they all knew it going in but once the reality of mega traffic started, I'm sure the owners weren't happy. The beach is a Golpher Tortoise Sanctuary and run by the city but the parking pass lent to us by friends gets us in free and it's really a wonderful spot. We had never attempted to go there as we assumed it was a closed community.

I'm so glad we went. There weren't too many people there...mostly serious shell pickers or locals doing their morning run. There was a lot of seaweed brought in by the high waves and lots and lots of starfish! Some of them were still alive and people are prohibited by law from collecting them...dead or alive. There were piles of shells and the storm had brought the tide in 8 feet higher than normal so there were shells everywhere. The three big jars of shells I have at home didn't prevent me from poking and picking but I concentrated on taking photos today so Wayne ended up with many more than me.

We will be going back here many more times....as soon as the weather improves. I'm glad we aren't here just for the month of January as it has not been nice at all. However, at least the sun comes out and we aren't shovelling anything!

Until next time, love and hugs to all. xx