We enjoyed our trip to the
Fort Myers area last December so much that we decided to take a long weekend and visit again.
On the day of departure a strong cold front was coming through and flight delays had accumulated to 4 hours by late afternoon.
So we were very happy when the plane took off after sitting on the tarmac for 90 minutes or so, and we got into
Fort Myers about one hour late.
La Quinta messed up our reservations, which was easily corrected.
The next two nights we stayed at the Marina Inn in Punta Gorda. It’s a one-bedroom “condotel” overlooking a huge (500+ boats) marina. Unfortunately the surrounding development (“Burnt Store”) is quite far from any other civilization. Since the snow bird season wasn’t in full swing yet, it was quite quiet.
View from the lanai at the Marina Inn. It's a 500-slip marina.
We stopped by a couple of high rise developments in Cape Coral (Cape Harbour and Tarpon Landings) to take a look at the apartments. Even with all the talk of dropping real estate prices, they were still charging $400 to $600 per square foot. Perhaps not expensive by large city (NYC, Hong Kong) standards, but still on the high side, in my opinion. And they have a lot of units on the market. In keeping with current concerns, they all boast how they can stand up to 145 (or whatever) mile wind. We also drove by our friends Susan’s and Peter’s house in Port Charlotte, which they built recently. (It was rented out, so we didn’t go inside.)
The Cape Harbour development with its 80-boat marina. Quite expensive.
We had dinner at one of the restaurants in Fishermen’s village in Punta Gorda. We then took a short sunset cruise on Charlotte Harbor. The sun didn’t cooperate and hid behind clouds. They just finished rebuilding the place after Charlie hit a couple of years ago (Friday August 13, 2004) and had their “open house” that evening. Everyone in town must have shown up. We got a couple of free cookies out of it.
Fishermen's Village. Sign on left advertises the arrival of Tropical Santa.
Casting off for the Sunset Cruise on Charlotte Harbor.
On Sunday we drove to Gasparilla Island with its million-dollar sleepy little residential areas. We drove all the way down to the southern tip of the island where the lighthouse is. The Park Ranger was trying to explain how to tell the difference between an osprey and a bald eagle, and mentioned bald eagle sightings on Placida Road. The biggest town on the island, Boca Grande, where we had lunch, was at most several blocks wide, and no traffic lights. We finished up a bit too late (around 2 pm) to rent a boat. Dinner was at Pincher’s Crab Shack in North Fort Myers. Anne had the stone crab claws which I have sworn off. Afterwards we drove by the Marinatown marina and noticed they put up two high rise buildings. All work seems to have stopped, probably due to the real estate market.
Boca Grande Lighthouse.
Anne enjoying the Stone Crab, which I have sworn off after fidning out how the claws are harvested.
Monday morning we went back to the Fishermen’s village to rent a small boat (21’) which we took out into Charlotte Harbor for a couple of hours. It was very windy (15 knots) and waves were at least 3’ high, quite a contrast from two days ago. We probably won’t take our own boat (which is a bit bigger) out in such conditions, such is the stupidity of tourists. They actually were forecasting small craft advisory later that evening. It was still fun trying to chart our course and wondering whether a particular landmark is what’s shown on the chart.
At the helm of the rental boat, chart firmly in hand - it would have cost $25 if we had lost it.
Our flight was quite late that evening, so we had time to drive by the Darling “Ding” nature reserve on Sanibel Island. The birds were still as numerous as the last time. One egret was particularly interesting, patiently waiting by water’s edge to snag the small fishes as they went by. Quite successful, actually. The insect repellent I used wasn’t particularly effective against all these small gnats. I am still itching from the many bites as I type this five days later. Anne didn’t put on any repellent, and is in worse shape.
This egret was very successful in catching fish that swam by.
Each of the white dot was a egret sitting in a tree.
Can you find the mangrove crab? They must be less than 1" in size.
The alligator remained motionless during the whole time we watched it. Is it real or is it put there so the tourists are not disappointed?
Boca Grande Lighthouse.
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