Friday 11th March

Apres Golf

202 yard par 3 from the blue tees through palm trees and over water - challenging

This was our last day on Marco Island. We returned to Hibiscus golf club to play a round of golf and were paired up with Mike and Angie who were good company.  They claimed to have low handicaps (Mike 9 and Angie 16) and so we joined in playing the blue (for men) and gold (for women) instead of playing our normal white and red tees. This made the course longer for us, however, Ben won today - he certainly outdrove and outplayed Mike! (and me). Overall Ben has won 2 more rounds than me but we both have exactly the same number of stableford points. We are planning to play in Miami tomorrow before we fly home so this is not the final score. The couple we played with were from Chicago and were very pleasant. Mike is an insurance broker and Angie works part time doing accounts.  They are involved amongst other things in the organisation of some PGA golf tournaments and had stories to tell about famous golfers (they agree that the europeans are much more friendly and polite than the American golfers!). For those in the know, I have managed to collect quite a lot of hibiscus cuttings, it will be interesting to see if they survive the flight back and our climate.

We ate out this evening on the Isle of Capri in a shack by the water, watching the sunset over the water and mangrove swamps with a live calypso singer performing. Once again we ate fish- I had scallops and snapper and Ben had clam chowder and snapper. It was an enjoyable evening- I hope I haven't been bitten to death by insects!


Ben has had a rush of blood to the head and upgraded us to business class on the way back - he thought I would appreciate the bed (he is right)!!

Capri Fish Cafe



Approaching sunset on the Isle of Capri



Thursday 10th March

This morning we went our separate ways, Ben went fishing and I did some retail therapy. Ben managed to catch a small number of fish but the main excitement was when a lady fishing along from Ben caught a small shark. 


Success

Bonnet Shark



Tip toe....

I managed to buy what I wanted and then had time to sit on the little lake beach at our hotel. When Ben returned at lunchtime we decided to book some golf for the afternoon at a short course which had mostly par 3 and 4 holes. The course again was not in good condition and was quite straggly inbetween rows of housing. Once again Ben got very frustrated. I managed to play quite well and beat Ben. Tomorrow will be the deciding day as a matrix has apparently been kept of our golf and who won each round we have played.

Our evening meal consisted once again of salad, lobster and steak which we ate at an outdoor restaurant.

Wednesday 9th March

The end of a busy Naples Pier - with lots of families fishing

A Snowy Egret scavenging for bait

We awoke to cloudy skies this morning, but the cloud had disappeared by midday with temperatures rocketing to 85F. We went to look at Naples pier and old town this morning. The area was affluent with large houses and expensive looking shops. We walked along the pier where there were people fishing but we didn't see any fish caught. The pelicans were hovering waiting to collect any free pieces of fish. We then moved on to the Naples Beach Hotel and golf course as we were due to play at 2pm. We visited the hotel beach bar and restaurant for a salad. The hotel was very plush and looked expensive (we checked afterwards and it was $450 dollars a night - full for the next 2 weeks!). The golf course on the other hand was very tired with large area of dead grass. The golf course is closing at the end of March to be completely renovated and it looked as if it needed a lot of tlc. Ben was quite frustrated when his ball didn't stay on the fairway. We were scheduled to play with a couple from Washington, the wife apparently only played when they were on holiday to keep her husband happy. We started on the first tee and Karen made 2 air shots followed by one which shot off obliquely. By the time we got to the third hole Karen said she needed to go to the bathroom, so they left us and we didn't see them again. I overheard her saying she was embarassed by her golf. We completed the round on our own, which was a blessing as we were unlikely to get round in daylight with the original pace! I am told I have to declare that Ben won today- however he didn't deserve to after all the swearing and mutterings about the course!


A windy golf course - note the extended waste areas - the trees are almost prehistoric

We shopped on the way home for ribeye steak, shrimps and salad and cooked when we arrived back at the hotel. We will miss this kind of food and lifestyle when we come home!





Ben's second shot to the 18th green (150 yds) - result - water cleared and just short of the green

Tuesday 8th March

We had a busy and interesting day today. We had booked to play golf on Coral Island, about 50 miles north of here, so set off early to give us plenty of time. The drive north was quick so we arrived in good time and had time to look around Palmetto-Pine golf course before we played. It turned out that the club was originally for ladies only and some of the rules for the clubhouse still apply- mobile phones have to be switched to silent and caps have to be removed before entering. We were paired with 2 american men - Tom was a retired headmaster and Steve a physiotherapist who was very overweight. The course was very pretty and the greens were fast and generally surrounded by bunkers. Despite all these I once again beat Ben (it was after all international women's day). We had a drink in the clubhouse with Tom and Steve with the usual political chat about the presidential election and british politics.

On the way we had noticed a veterans memorial park with an iconoc Iwo Jima memorial as we drove over the bridge onto Coral Island. We stopped there on the way back. Ben photographed the famous statue. It reminded us a bit of the National Arboretum in England but on a smaller scale but just as poignant in memory of thousands of american troops who lost their lives in the second world war, Korean, Vietnam and Iraq wars.

On the Course

From the left - unknown interloper (!), Steve, Liz, Ben and Tom

Iwo Jima Statue

We stopped on the way back at a Chili's restaurant- we had not been to one before and will not be in a hurry to return. The food was ok but the service very poor, which is unusual for America - Ben did not leave a tip!.

Monday 7th March

Dolphins

Another lovely sunny day albeit windy.  We had a bit of a veg day - another visit to Walmart to buy some bits and bobs - Ben bought some trainers only to discover that when he put them on one of the lace ties was damaged - we will change them tomorrow.  Ben spent the afternoon fishing whilst Liz sat alongside doing sudokos and soaking up the sun.  Only one fish was caught and returned safely to the waves.  We were treated to some synchromised swimming by a couple of young dolphins as well as watching lots of boats to-ing and 

The fish!

fro-ing.  We took the opportunity to put the SUV through a car wash as it was pretty dirty from our earlier off-road Everglades trip - it is better but still has evidence of the white dust.

After last night's steak and lobster treat Liz heated a lasagne for supper.

Sunday 6th March


Liz on her way back from her paddle...

Yet again the sun shone with no clouds today! We drove to Naples and spent some time on Naples City beach which consisted of miles of white sandy beach as well of miles of exclusive housing overlooking the beach. We noticed that there were very few children on  the beach, but the area appears to be mostly for retired people to holiday.

A friendly/hungry fox squirrel

We called in at the pro shop at Naples Beach Hotel to book some golf for Wednesday on the Naples Beach course.
We then went and played golf at the Hibiscus course which was very pretty with lightning fast greens - we didn't notice many hibiscus plants but there were lots of other colourful plants. We played with a couple from New Hampshire who were interesting to talk to. Bill is currently a ladies' basketball team coach, but he has been a golf coach and a soccer coach in his past, as well as organising a golf tour in his home State - quite a contrast to yesterday's couple.



Tree lined fairway

We finished off the day with fillet steak and lobster at the Outback Restaurant.



Saturday 5th March
We returned to the San Carlos golf course today to play another round of golf. This time the couple we were paired up with caused us much amusement! They were both coming up to 75 years old, Jerry is still practising as a physician's assistant, which in our language is equivalent to a nurse practitioner, and Loreen is a retired nurse. Neither of us thought we would want to lay our lives in the hands of Jerry. Loreen told us her husband had died some years ago but we were not told nor could we work out their relationship. They are from Cleveland, Ohio, and are on holiday together. Jerry gave himself several mulligans on the way round, the best was on the par 3 17th hole when he announced that he was putting for his first birdie of the year, when he had blatantly hit his first drive into the water!

Today's winner *!!* (red tees were miles in front of whites!!)

He also changed his ball on every
green so he could putt with his 'favourite' ball.  Needless to say I beat Ben once again.  We have come to the conclusion that 5 hour + rounds are the norm at this time of the year.

We called in at Walmart on the way back and bought 2 'petit' sirloin steaks (in our language read 'pretty big'!) and salad which we ate when we returned back to the hotel.