Island storm

Today we decided to head over to Sarasota and have lunch at The Old Salty Dog, another restaurant featured on the Travel Channel's Man v Food.



Rather than drive straight there, we went up to Anna Maria Island first and saw lots of people towing boats, ready to get them out onto the water. I've never seen so many people in boats!

The coast road down to Sarasota is gorgeous and lined with resorts and condominiums all facing the Gulf of Mexico. The Old Salty Dog is on the outskirts of Sarasota and is right on the water. It's surrounded by boat yards and we saw loads of people out on the water enjoying the beautiful weather. What a great life some people must have here!

Luckily we were able to park easily and managed to get a shaded table right by the water straight away. We were pretty early but the restaurant was already buzzing with lots of people enjoying lunch. The Old Salty Dog is British owned and Keith and I chose the fish and chips for our meal. Of course, the children had to go for the signature dish!

The salty dog is a Frankfurter sausage, coated in batter and then deep fried. You can then have your choice of toppings on it, or go the whole hog and have everything that Adam Richman had! My two settled for just cheese and bacon!

Sophie said it was one of the best meals she'd ever had, so that's praise indeed! Our fish and chips were lovely, too and the portion wasn't huge which I was pleased about. It was a perfect lunchtime meal.

The Old Salty Dog

After lunch we headed back to the villa for an afternoon of laziness. Again, it was very hot but it was bliss to be able to sink into the coolish waters of the pool when it all got too much.

We had the perfect Florida sky again this afternoon - lots of fluffy white clouds and brilliant blue sky but by evening the sky had clouded over completely and we had another terrific storm.

We'd planned on going to Anna Maria Island to find a bar to watch the sunset, but when we left at 6pm the rain was lashing down and the storm was raging all around us. We called into Publix first to stock up on essentials and then drove the short distance to the island. The storm seemed to be following us but we persevered and we were amazed to see the huge amount of cars leaving the beaches. Once on Anna Maria Island, the roads were flooded, some of them really badly in places so we had to take extra care when driving through the huge puddles.

We decided to head for the City Pier again and parked easily outside Two Scoops Ice-cream parlour. Picking our way through the lying water we walked onto the pier and joined lots of people making their way to the end of the pier, maybe to eat at the restaurant or just watch the distant storm as we were doing.

At the end of the pier, lots of people were fishing and we grabbed some drinks at the small bar. The barman asked us the usual question - where in the UK were we from, and then he said he'd just got back from visiting Cambridge and London where he was nearly arrested for sitting on one of the lions in Trafalgar Square! He showed us photos of our stern looking policemen and we laughed. He was a real character (and very good looking!) and it was great to chat with him for a while.

We took our drinks and went off to watch the storm. To my absolute delight and amazement I saw a dolphin in the water! He lazily swam around, probably attracted by the fishing bait and it was wonderful to see the animal in it's natural environment. We then saw two more in the distance and everyone on the pier was going mad when they appeared. There was a lovely atmosphere.

Not a great photo, but the wild ones don't pose!

By now it was getting late so we left the pier, marvelling at the gorgeous sky as we walked back to the car.

We were going to try and find a bar for a drink, but we decided to head back to the villa and stop off at a Papa John's pizza on the way as the children wanted one for their supper. We somehow got lost in Bradenton and almost ended up back in Sarasota, but we finally found our road (the SR 70) and called into Papa John's where we caused absolute mayhem as we hadn't phoned and place an order!

The woman serving asked Keith for a phone number and he said that all he wanted to do was place an order and pay for it. Apparently this isn't the done thing!

Back at the villa, I enjoyed leftovers from my Chinese the night before while the rest of my family tucked into their huge pizzas. Needless to say there's some left for lunch tomorrow!