Pizza, Wings and Stranger Things 2019 Day 14

[wizzo]

Day Fourteen – 24th August 2019

THE INDEX IS HERE

After our late night at the football last night we all had a lie in this morning and didn’t get up till 10am. Starving, we started walking to IHOP at a very lazy 10:30am! That’s not like us.





We’re not used to IHOP being this packed either!

I needed something to soak up last night’s beer so ordered the country fried steak and eggs.



This wasn’t a real steak of course in IHOP, it was closer to a massive squashed flat burger. It was gorgeous! 😊

Lynn also broke from tradition and ordered hangover food, a Spicy Pablano Omelette, whatever that is!



Maddy had Strawberry Vanilla Stuffed French Toast



Lauren had Nutella Crepes



Belly’s suitably full, we went back to the hotel and changed into beach attire. It was at this point that we split up. We said our goodbyes in the lobby of the hotel. Lynn headed to the beach, me and the kids headed back to Fort de Soto Park for some kayaking. This will be the third time we have been searching for Manatees by kayak. Let’s hope we have more luck that the previous two occasions!



The bloke at the kayak hire recognised us, although he thought we were Australian (I put him right), gave us a ‘regulars discount’ and said don’t worry about sticking to the hour rental, take as long as you like. How nice was that?

So the three of us saddled up in individual kayaks and set off.



Now if you’re not a regular like us, you get a map of this stretch of intercoastal water filled with mangroves and it shows a network of channels and islands that you can explore. There are conveniently placed marker boards with numbers on that correspond to numbers on the map so you can’t get lost. You could easily get lost if you wandered too far.

Now we knew the lie of the land and set off at a reasonable pace to cover as much water as we could in an attempt to finally see a manatee here. We had covered maybe half a mile or so and the professional athlete amongst us (Lauren) was whinging for England about it being hard work. Being 15 I’m just not sure she was feeling it, this morning. Maddy was loving it though and we pushed on, with the feint sound of Lauren whining some 200m behind us by now.



By the time we had paddled all the way out to open water and done a lap of the islands at the end of the kayak map, Lauren had turned around and we could see her heading back to base. We had been out for nearly an hour at this point. Maddy and I had searched like mad and hadn’t seen hide nor hair of a Manatee.

Eventually we decided that we had given it a good shot, looked in every place we felt we could and started heading back. It was about a 10 minute paddle until we turned the last corner before the boat house and discovered ‘Moany Hole’ (Lauren) stationary taking photos of something in the water. The whiny little scrote had only bloody discovered a couple of Manatees having a relax in the sun hadn’t she! So we pushed in for a closer look as she had already had a good 20 minutes sat watching them.











Like the dolphins yesterday, the photos and video don’t do this encounter justice it was fantastic. The baby was sooooooo cute. The kids decided that a baby Manatee should be called an Manateenie. Next time I will take a long selfie stick to video Manatees because you need to video them from above to see them properly as you can see in the first video.

Also, don’t worry, Maddy didn’t quite run that one over in her Kayak (bloody kids) 😊

Today goes to show how elusive Manatees can be, we must have paddled right over the top of these (there were about 6 in total) when we set off from the boat house. They can hold their breath for ages while having a power nap on the bottom, and we missed them going out. Lucky that Lauren was a lazy @rse today in the end.

We paddled back the 100m to the kayak shack and thanked the man for our discount again. This is a great little excursion to do when you want a break from the beach.

We returned to find Lynn and spent the next couple hours in the sea at the hotel. Some of you may remember a couple of years ago, Maddy named three birds on the beach and we took photos of them to remember their leg ring numbers. She named them Cliff, Clifford and Cliff Jr. Every year she searches for them and every year she fails to find them but she likes trying nevertheless.

This one isn't a skimmer by the way. It's just a random gull photo







By 4pm we had all had enough and headed back up to the room to chill, shower and prepare for dinner. We did a bit of packing as we are heading up to Orlando tomorrow for the final leg of this tour of Florida’s interstates. We also had a beer on the balcony while the kids had showers.







Before long it was approaching 8pm and we made our way down to Mad Fish for our 8pm reservation. I still can’t believe we have stated here so many times and missed this absolute little gem of a restaurant. It’s practically on the hotel grounds too! I would be interested to hear how many of you have eaten here? I bet it’s loads!

We were a few minutes early and the place was absolutely rammed. We were informed that the next available table would be ours and we waited until it was ready. Again we got a lovely booth with a view of our hotel and ordered a bottle of the same Sauvignon Blanc we had two nights ago.









We all skipped starters in favour of dessert and the mains are big on the al a carte menu (especially ours).

So Lynn and I had already decided what we were going to have two days ago. My beef from the early bird was soo good, I knew this lad could cook a steak, so we ordered the Chateaubriand for two and we weren’t disappointed!



It was cooked perfectly and tasted amazing! Cannot recommend this place or this meal enough.

Lauren ordered the Seafood Trio, although she only wanted the shrimp and mussels so strictly speaking it was a Duo. She loved it.



Maddy loves salmon and had it herb crusted. Again, she ate every morsel and raved about it.



I swerved the Key Lime Pie as I had ordered it two days previous but told Lynn to get it because it was so good. Lauren and I had Crème brûlée and Maddy had the flourless chocolate cake.







We had another bottle of wine and there was no pressure to finish up and leave. The meal was an absolute joy. Not cheap, you wouldn’t eat here every night but worth every penny.

I got chatting to the Head Chef’s Dad / Owner after our meal and promised I would mention his place in my trip report. I think the owner and the head chef being both father and son and British really shone through in the food. I’ve said many times before that American restaurants are massively overrated in terms of price and quality when it comes to fine dining but this place was spot on. Don’t get me wrong food in America is fantastic when they stick to what they are good at (Steak, BBW, Seafood, Burgers etc etc). WDW in particular is the most over priced food anywhere on the planet in my book. The counter service is head and shoulders better value than the table service in my humble opinion.

Shortly after 10:30pm we were back in the room and on this holiday we trained Maddy to make drinks (She loves it), so she did a couple of rum and cokes for the old folks and grape Fanta for her and Lauren before we all turned in.

Tomorrow – The drive up to old haunts, Seaworld and Buffalo Wild Wings.

[mick]

What a brilliant day glad you managed to find some manatees

And a good meal to finish your coast trip


Joan

[ziggyzag]

Fantastic day again!

[princess allie]

Well I’d certainly say you had a great birthday at St Pete. Sunshine, good food and company and dolphins and manatees!

[JanetteP]

Yay - we did Madfish too - we had a chat with the owner and his Dad - lovely people aren't they? I told them I would mention it on the dibb too - he couldn't do enough for us. I would travel to St Pete's just for Madfish, definitely one of our best meals.

[Mqt]

Great day. Whereabouts is the kayak hire place on Fort deSoto? We’ve cycled round but not noticed it.

[Minnie18]

Great report 😊

Have wrote in my notes: train daughter to make drinks 🤣

[pretty71]

Fantastic day think I will be looking up the kayaking too. I have eaten at Madfish but when it was actually a diner...it was amazing then, I really can't remember what it was called though, it was about 15 years ago! 😁

[wizzo]

Originally Posted by Mqt

Great day. Whereabouts is the kayak hire place on Fort deSoto? We’ve cycled round but not noticed it.

See more...

After you’ve paid the parking fee and reach the T-Junction, turn right and head in the direction of the North Beach. It’s a shack on the right hand side of the road. Now you know, you can’t miss it. Shed Ton of kayaks visible from the road

[darbs]

Lovely day and looks like you had great weather at the beach!