Venice Beaches

Enjoying the sunshine at Blind Pass Beach

After walking nearly 12 miles yesterday, we slept very well last night. We managed to stay awake until 9:30 and slept until nearly 6 am. We had our usual travel breakfast of raisin bran and Greek yogurt and planned our day. Because our feet were still sore from all the walking on Thursday and Friday, we were looking for a day with less walking, so we looked at area beaches, especially on Manasota Key in Venice and Englewood.

Great Blue Heron on Blind Pass Beach

We left the apartment around 8 am in shorts and t shirts because the temperature was already nearly 70 degrees. We drove from Sarasota onto the barrier island near Venice. We have always heard about visitors finding attractive shells and fossilized shark teeth in the surf. Mostly we just wanted to get out in the sunshine and enjoy the beautiful warm and sunny day. Our first stop was at Blind Pass Beach, where we parked and walked south along the beach for a couple of miles. 

Most of the people at the beach were near the public access point where there were lots of beach chairs and umbrellas. Several families were fishing in the surf, and many people were looking for shells and shark teeth. Most people had long-handled strainers allowing them to scoop material from the surf and sort for teeth and shells. These fossilized teeth ranged from 2.5 million to 200 million years old and ranged in size from nearly as small as grains of sand to as large as dessert saucers. We took our shoes off and waded in the surf walking to the south end of the public beach area. We collected about 20 fossil shark teeth from ¼ inch to ½ inch in size. We returned to our rental car around 10:30 for a snack and rest.

After our usual Ritz crackers, peanut butter and fruit, we walked back to the beach and walked north for about an hour before returning to the car in the beach parking area. We drove south on the key to Manasota Beach where we walked on the beach briefly, but it wasn’t much different from the Blind Pass Beach. We continued north to Casperson Beach which is probably the most popular beach in the Venice area. As with the other beaches, lots of people were sunbathing, fishing and tooth hunting near the beach access. After we walked a couple hundred yards along the beach, there were very few people. The sand here was much finer than at the other beaches although there were a lot of large rocks in the sand at the surf line. There is a short nature trail that winds near the beach but there were no interpretative signs or other aids to visitors.

Great Egret at Venice Rookery

We left Casperson Beach for the short drive to the Venice Area Audubon Society Rookery. There were a number of birders around the pond at the small sanctuary some with serious lenses and camera equipment. However, we didn’t see any birds that one wouldn’t see in any neighborhood park in south Florida. We walked around the pond and took a few snapshots then drove back to our apartment in Sarasota.

When we arrived, we met the parents of the AirBnB host who live in the house in front of our apartment. Dave and Sara are a nice older couple who gave us a lot of information about the area. They told us to call on them if we needed anything during our stay.

As soon as we got in the apartment, we both got showers and changed clothes. We were still covered in sand and saltwater from wading at the beaches. Getting showered refreshed us and we started thinking about dinner. Mary found Heinrich’s German Grill in Sarasota that is only 5 miles away. We were seated immediately on arrival. Mary ordered a veal schnitzel prepared cordon bleu style. I had the veal jaegerschnitzel which has mushroom gravy. We both has red kraut and spaetzle on the side. Both of our meals were very good but was the only meal on this trip for me that wasn’t some type of seafood. This was the most expensive meal we have had on this trip by far, but it was very good so we have no complaints.