This is part one of the Sarasota Wiki Vacation series. This trip to the Sarasota barrier islands yielded a large number of pictures which I’ve added to various Wikipedia articles. The unusually-long post I wrote became too long and unfocused. It is about 90 pages long. I am now breaking it up into specific posts by location and theme.
This one is about Anna Maria Island, also known as the Anna Maria Key, where we explored Coquina Beach, Cortez Beach, and marveled at cast-net fishing at beautiful sunset.
Coquina Beach on Anna Maria Island
On day one, we ate at Mar Vista. Then we drove over the short Longboat Pass bridge from Longboat Key to Anna Maria Island. To our left we found the under-appreciated Coquina Beach. This one doesn’t even have its own Wikipedia article. But it sported the same super-fine, silky white sand we found at the world-famous Siesta Beach when we stopped by Siesta the day before, during our quick touring of the Sarasota area.
Have I mentioned the birds? Birds were everywhere. One couldn’t take a picture with water in view without also capturing at least one bird in the picture.
Laughing Seagulls at Coquina Beach
I like taking pictures of lifeguard stations.
Coquina Beach Lifeguard Station
We loved those Florida stone crab we had on day one. So we drove back to Mar Vista to chow down on those delicious stone crab claws again, on day two. Then we headed back to Anna Maria Island again, to look at the Sunset from the beach. This time we were heading to Cortez Beach.
On our way there, we saw for the first-time the multi-story boat storage locals told us about. This was apparently the norm here, but we were amazed when told. On the other hand, locals recounted their dropped jaws when visiting Manhattan and seeing elevators moving cars from ground level to a parking lot 20 stories high, which to us was the norm.
Multi-story self-storage for boats
After passing through the Longboat Pass bridge, we ran into a traffic jam. It seemed like the only road to Cortez Bridge was in a grid lock. So we decided to park at the Coquina Beach, like we did the day before, and walk along the shore line to Cortez Beach instead.
Revisiting Coquina Beach on a late afternoon
I have a thing for lifeguard stations
So we walked to Cortez Beach. Have I mentioned that birds were everywhere?
A local just caught a couple of fish by net, standing on the long groin (sea wall).
The art of cast-net fishing
Our local fisherman made net casting look so effortless. But I am sure it requires years of practice. Here is a full sequence of this graceful move of casting the net and making it land right on top of your intended victims, trapping them with a nice circular wall of death.
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Angling at the end of the sea wall
Other locals caught their dinner by fishing rods, at the end of the groin. With the sun setting on the West, nice pictures were had.
Sunset at Cortez Beach
Certain person couldn’t help but pose before the setting sun.
This is part one of a series. The full series can be found here on this 90-page-long post. The next is part two: world’s largest miniature circus.
Xinhai Dude 
