Description: At Captiva Cruises, there are many options for boating--there are cruises for dolphin-watching, fishing, shelling, sunset-watching, and others. My group took the Dolphin Watching Cruise and the Beach and Shelling Cruise.
The Dolphin Cruise was great. It was a pretty big boat where one could sit in the sun or on a covered deck, in case you were getting too much sun. The captain said that they see dolphins about 98% of the time, so you're not likely to be disappointed. And sure enough, in about 5 minutes, they were swimming right alongside our boat. When the boat is moving, it creates these waves on the sides, and the dolphins will just surf along in these waves--perfect for viewing. The captain explained that dolphin have the perfect lives--they spend 8 hours eating, 8 hours playing, and 8 hours sleeping. Also, it was funny, because our captain told us to scream and clap when we see the dolphins because they will apparently swim along with the boat longer if they find us amusing, and I guess they're known to respond to a bunch of hollering and yelping.
The next day, we went on the Shelling Cruise. This was a nicely paced little boat trip for my family--we can't have too much excitement, you know. Browsing for the prettiest seashells in mint condition on the beach provided a good couple of hours of amusement for us. There were wild pigs on this island that would come right up to you, but they didn't seem to be mean or aggresive in any way (but the captain of our boat did warn us not to feed them). Much of the island looked really strange, with dried-up, dead, and mangled trees from the last hurricane. It was really cool-looking, actually. We found quite a lot of good shells for our collection and thought the island was pretty cool. There is absolutely no shade on this island, so bring your sunscreen--but if you get too hot, you can always hop back on the boat for awhile and drink some soda on the covered deck.
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