Monday, March 5, 2012

Our first stop today was Clearwater Marine Aquarium in Clearwater, FL.  This is the aquarium where Winter in Dolphin Tale lives and where much of that movie was shot.  If you haven't seen the movie I highly recommend it and if you are ever in the area, this Aquarium is a must see for animal, dolphin, and turtle lovers.  Their focus is rehabilitation and as a non-profit all money earned goes directly into rehabilitating sick and injured marine animals.

Winter wasn't very active today but here is a picture of her.

The sea turtles were fun to watch.

There were also sharks, stingrays and some other fish.  To end my thoughts on Clearwater Marine Aquarium, here is a photo that those of you who saw the movie may enjoy.

For lunch we stopped at Frenchy's Salt Water Cafe an excellent recommendation from a local.  It's focus was seafood as you may guess and the fish tacos I had with cajun grilled red snapper were very tasty.  Paul had a cajun grilled red snapper sandwich and said it was incredible.  We highly recommend this restaurant.

From there we went to Clearwater Beach which had a fair number of people considering the cooler weather (high around 73*F).  I picked up a few shells and we walked along the water.  I had rolled up my capris but still got them wet.  I guess the water was just too irresistible.  We also saw a few birds which were not afraid of humans and so I could get quite close for some nice photos.  

Lastly, there was a cute tiny critter that I only had time to take one picture of before the waves pulled it back to sea.