Categories
Community Tourism

Cortez Commercial Fishing Festival

Anna Maria Island is enriched by the wide range of very different communities that surround it. Perhaps the most colorful and unusual of these is the working fishing village of Cortez, immediately across the bridge from Bradenton Beach, on the southwest side of Bradenton. Cortez is full of extremely picturesque cottages where real life still goes on. In many parts of the country, these kinds of communities have become sterile tourist attractions, and no longer authentic, but Cortez still works hard to maintain its traditions and meaningful activities, and the residents still work in the local fishing industry.

For these reasons, Cortez is always a wonderful place to visit, and to celebrate. Cortez working fishing villageBut the Cortez Commercial Fishing Festival is a time when the festivities are in full swing. This year, the Twenty Ninth Annual Cortez Commercial Fishing Festival takes place on February 19 and 20.

Categories
Real Estate

Anna Maria Island Properties

Many wonderful places are surrounded by not-so-wonderful places. Often these wonderful places have been preserved, and protected from development, but the development has sprawled all around them. Eventually the small preserved spots can start to feel more like museum exhibits than like places where real life takes place. They are isolated. It may be fun to visit such places, but in my opinion it would not be enjoyable to live in them.

Sometimes things happen in the opposite way. It’s the new development that is nice compared to the older surroundings. This is how it is when an upscale gated community is developed in an area that was previously undesirable. All is fine inside the gates, but outside there is not much of appeal.

Waterfront property Anna Maria Island is a gem of a place, and it is surrounded by a wide variety of other kinds of places, all of which are appealing. This is one of the island’s greatest assets in terms of being a wonderful place to live. Not only is the island a remarkably small scale, natural Old Florida area, but it also offers its residents easy access to many other kinds of places. This makes life here more interesting and colorful. Within a short distance, the variety of surroundings and activities is remarkable.

To the south, Longboat Key is one of the wealthiest communities in the nation. The professional landscaping is reason enough to occasionally take a drive or trolley ride down Longboat. At the top of Longboat Key is the historical village where peacocks have roamed freely for years, and where the art center is now a part of the Ringling School of Art and Design.

Categories
Arts Community

Cortez Net Working

The Annual Cortez Commercial Fishing Festival returns Saturday and Sunday February 16 & 17 from 10:00 to 18:00.

Spend a day amongst fishing boats, gear, fish houses and commercial fishermen to appreciate a different perspective on life.

Historic Cortez fishing village

Originally known as Hunter’s Point, Cortez is located on the northern edge of Sarasota Bay adjacent to Anna Maria Island and its three cities, Anna Maria, Holmes Beach and Bradenton Beach. Cortez has one of the few remaining active commercial fishing waterfronts in Florida.

Historic Cortez has long been an important fishing village and the fish so plentiful the adjacent Anna Maria Sound was referred to as ‘The Kitchen’. In the 1850’s, before refrigeration, most of the mullet caught was salted and shipped to Cuba.