Updated Nov. 13, 2017
CORTEZ – The Sixth Annual Cortez Stone Crab Festival netted hundreds of seafood fans on a beautiful fall weekend.
Hosted by the Swordfish Grill and Tiki Bar, this year’s free festival featured nautical art displays, pony rides, live music and, of course, the delicacy the festival is named after.
The Stone Crab Festival benefits the Manatee Chapter of Fishing For Freedom, a commercial fishing group.
A hammerhead shark sculpture at the Stone Crab Festival. - Cindy Lane | Sun
Englewood Artist Joseph I. Kreisel shows off his pebble mosaics, made from pebbles, bits of tortoise shell, shark teeth and stingray barbs that wash up on Englewood Beach. - Cindy Lane | Sun
Homemade signs draw smiles at the Stone Crab Festival in Cortez. - Cindy Lane | Sun
A Stone Crab Festival attendee admires fish painted on wood by Bradenton artist Mike Parrott of Brushes and Bouquets Custom Art and Flowers. - Cindy Lane | Sun
Wine bottle fish by Village of the Arts artist Kevin Webb, who also displays at Restless Natives on Anna Maria Island, attract attention at the Cortez Stone Crab Festival. - Cindy Lane | Sun
Suncatchers by artist Marcia Montgomery of The Classic Mermaid. - Cindy Lane | Sun
Stone crab claws are what it’s all about at the Sixth Annual Cortez Stone Crab Festival. - Cindy Lane | Sun
Musa Ali, of China and Lakewood Ranch, enjoys stone crab claws with his brother, mom and grandmother at the festival. - Cindy Lane | Sun
The Stone Crab Festival benefits Fishing for Freedom’s Manatee chapter, which demonstrates how gill nets that were banned in 1995 actually allowed juvenile fish to swim through and survive while catching legal-size mullet. - Cindy Lane | Sun
