John's Pass & Madeira Beach

A couple of weeks ago, I had friends in town. They wanted to go to John's pass to take a dolphin watching cruise. I had never heard of this place and I didn't know about the dolphin watching activities. I left work early that Friday afternoon to meet them. Sadly, they left too early on the 3:00 PM boat and the following boat was scheduled at 6:00 PM. I was disappointed that they didn't want to do the later ride but they have two kids under 2. I understood and didn't see any dolphins that day. However, I was intrigued about this place. 

Last weekend, it was raining non stop. There isn't much to do around here except go to the beach or go to a theme park. Andre and I drove 40 minutes to John's pass to have dinner by the water . I was excited to see a new place that according to some web searches is the number 1 tourist attraction on that side of town. John's pass is a boardwalk with restaurants, shops, a fishing pier, and boats offering tours. We had dinner at Friendly Fisherman Restaurant. We had a great table by a window facing the water. The food was OK.  It was rated on urbanspoon at 65% as well as the other restaurants nearby. After dinner, we saw a few dolphins from the boardwalk. I noticed that there are boats that can also take you to Shell Island, a barrier island that I used to go years ago. I have to look into that since this place is only accessible by boat. 

Friendly Fisherman Restaurant

Fresh dinner

After dinner, we noticed that the clouds were gone and that on the other side of the road there was a beautiful sunset. We quickly found a parking spot and I got a few sunset pictures from Madeira Beach. 

Sunset from Madeira Beach

This was a great Sunday afternoon. We are having Andre's sister visiting next month. She will be in Tampa only for 3 days. We might go back to John's Pass and Madeira Beach.