Perfect in Naples / Marco Island - Jonathan Green Gallery, Fishing for Grouper, and Groupies on the Beach

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Hi all - Life continues to be good. We ventured up to Tin City, a series of old tin-roofed buildings that have been turned into gift shops and restaurants located just as you cross the bridge on Route 41 to enter Naples. We didn't buy anything and came back later to the Riverwalk Restaurant for lunch (grouper sandwich for Wes; grouper tacos for me. The food was wonderful! The Riverwalk is a sister restaurant to the Dock at Crayton's Cove, which is one of our favorite Naples' restaurants. The big surprise of the day happened when we walked along the board walk under 5th ave. (Route 41)! We found ourselves in Bay Front, a very upscale residential/retail complex. We visited three art galleries, one had very interesting avant guarde work, one featured beautiful, representational contemporary artists, and they third blew us away. It was the Naples gallery of Jonathan Green, the artist who interprets the Gullah culture that we first saw in Charleston. We chatted for almost an hour with Richard (the man who discovered and encourated Johathan) at the gallery. He gave us the beautiful Jonathan Green 2008 calendar and a CD of a Sunday Morning Charles Kurault segment on Jonathan Green. The work is beautiful! We were both very taken by it. I think we have a new favorite American artist. Check him out at: http://www.jonathangreenstudios.com/Artists.

Sunday at the Naples Beach was awesome. A nice crowd was enjoying the great outdoors and the water was warmer than we had remembered. We came back to Silver Lakes for a swim and dip in the hot tub. On Monday we hung around at Silver Lakes, rode our bikes to the pool and relaxed. Sunset found us at the Sunset Grille in the Apollo South Beach, Marco Island. The beach and sunset were wonderful as was the appetizer - coconut shrimp which we split - one little problem is that ourdoor restaurants all over the map have often become the "smoking sections!" But, we enjoyed being here anyway!

On Tuesday we went deep sea fishing out of Tin City on the Lady Brett. What fun! The boat, with a capacity of 24, just had six passengers and a very accomodating crew of two. The passage to the Gulf of Mexico was like a real estate tour of some very beautiful - and some sort of over the top - homes. Everyone on the boat caught fish; but grouper has to be 21 inches and most of our fish were juveniles. It was catch and release for many of these 5-6 pound, 18ish inches long, and great fighters! One of our party, Issac, pulled in a reef shark! That was very cool! And, his wife, Connie brought in the biggest "keeper" grouper of the morning. We docked a little after noon; and went to The Dock at Crayton Cove where Wes had a great BLT with Crabmeat and I ate half of a Cuban sandwich and brought the tasty leftovers home. Love hearing from you all and it seems that most of you like the blog. Thanks for the feedback.

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Comments

[Kate]

Hi Joanne and Wes, Sounds like you guys are living the life!!! Some thing for us young ones to shoot for!! maybe see you for the holidays? Enjoy!!! Kate 8