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Skyway Fishing Pier

Just down the road is I-275 that takes you across the Bay into the Bradenton-Sarasota area.  The Skyway Bridge is fairly new, having been constructed in 1987.  The former bridge was destroyed by a ship that rammed one of the pylons causing 35 people to plunge to their deaths.  Remnants of the old bridge remain as fishing piers for local anglers.  For $4.00 you can get a pass onto these northbound and southbound ramps and spend the day drowning worms, although, from what I saw,  you'd likely be hooted off if you used worms here.  More appropriate are fish heads, and larger live bait.   



This old vacated ramp still stands and is one of two which were used for Northbound traffic.   The only ones to use it now are the myriad birds that keep vigil over the humans in case a snack would come their way.


Crumbling away from disuse this is a road to nowhere.




I can't get enough pictures of he weirdest ugliest thing with wings, my old flying buddies, the Pelican.


Spotted in the water was this crab who had a fondness for french fries.


The Skyway.  Built to resemble sails, the likelihood of another accident has been mitigated by the large round bumpers in front of the pilings.


There is a bait shop and restroom facilities on both piers.  


A clothespin helps a fisherman to organize his lines.


A nice catch for this fellow who seemed to have difficulty getting the hook out.  


This poor fellow was swimming around and appeared unable to take flight due to fishing line wrapped around his wing.  See it trailing behind?  




Leisurely swimming around was this large crab.  Rather graceful swimmers from what I saw.   






There isn't any perspective to this fine old fellow as far as size but his shell was somewhere around 3-4 feet long.  Now that is a huge turtle.  I felt pretty lucky to have gotten these pictures, since his time up getting oxygen really wasn't all that long.   This looks to be a loggerhead sea turtle.  They average about 3 1/2 feet long and weigh 250 lbs. but some can get to be up to 800 lbs.   They can also live to be 50.  I'm not a herpetologist but I play one when I'm at the Fishing Pier.












Leave the fishing pier and you can wind in and around the area on sand roads.  People come here during the weekends and pitch their tents and camp out for the day.  These guys were playing grab ass with their Ski-Doo's and one was floating around attempting to make their girlfriend scream with his driving.  From what I could tell it was working.  



This looks like a painting, but it's not.



But perhaps the best idea I saw were these two simply out in the water with their favorite adult beverage.





Superboy was a 1988 TV show that apparently didn't last long.  They inexplicably used footage of the new Skyway being built with the old one next to it before its demolition.  And yes, the opening few seconds clearly shows the span that was rammed by the Blackthorn.

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