Sanibel and Captiva Islands

We were awake at our usual early morning hour and had the last of the Wheat Chex and tea for breakfast.  We left the room around 8 am and drove up through Sanibel and Captiva Islands.  We paid the $6 toll to cross the causeway and bridge to the islands and drove along the only main road through the islands.  These islands are definitely a high rent district with many homes and vacation properties selling for $10 million and above.  We started by visiting the lighthouse on the end of Sanibel Island.  This lighthouse doesn’t look like any lighthouse that one would expect on the Atlantic Coast but was a metal structure on a metal tower.  It was somewhat reminiscent of a free standing tree stand that hunters use to hunt deer.  There were some historical markers and trails through the area. 

From the lighthouse, we drove along the main road through the high end properties to the J. N. “Ding” Darling Nature Preserve.  The visitor center has great displays of many of the common plants and animals.  While we were in the visitor center, a major rain storm hit the area.  We decided that we would spend additional time enjoying the displays in the visitor center until the rain slowed or stopped.  Since there had been so much rain we didn’t choose to take the self-guided driving tour through the nature preserve.  We had to laugh at the variety of animal crossing signs that we have seen here so far.  Of course we saw deer crossing but we have also seen alligator, eagle, panther, gopher tortoise, owl and bear crossing signs.  Ding Darling was a local cartoonist who had work published in major newspapers and magazines but whose passion was conservation.  Darling’s work in conservation has been honored by many national and international groups.

After leaving the Darling Nature Preserve, we continued driving through Sanibel Island to Captiva Island which is much smaller than Sanibel.  Captiva is mostly private high end property so we drove across the island and headed back toward the mainland.  

We stopped for a quick lunch in Fort Myers then drove to the winter estates of Thomas Edison and Henry Ford.  We didn’t tour either home but looked around the neighborhood and grounds.  We were impressed with the huge banyan tree that Edison planted as a sapling in 1927 that is now a huge cluster of trees. 

We drove to the Lee County Manatee Park that is adjacent to a power plant.  When the bay cools below 68 degrees, the manatees come into the river where the water warmed by the power plants attracts them.  Because el Nino has allowed the bay to remain at 70 degrees there were few manatees in the stream near the viewing area.  We probably saw about 20 in the river.  As much as the manatees, we enjoyed the signage for the plants around the viewing area.  There is also an ethnobotany trail where plants are marked with signs indicating the current and historical value of selected plants to human activity. 

We drove back to our room at the Wyndham Garden Inn at Fort Myers Beach then walked north along the beach.  The heavy rain of the day had compacted the sand and left a good deal of standing water along and near the beach.  We walked about 1.5 miles before turning back and returning to our room.  I went out again as the sun was going down to take some snapshots of sunset from an area not far from our hotel at the remains of a burnt pier just south of the hotel.

We went to dinner at the hotel restaurant, Pinchers, which specializes in local seafood.  Mary had the grilled shrimp with local green beans and garlic bread.  I had crab cakes from local Gulf blue crabs with fries and cole slaw on the side.  We each had a margarita since the happy hour price was two for one.  We both enjoyed our meals and thought the service was very good.  Probably the best part was the we didn’t have to drive back after dinner since our room was just a short walk away.

If the weather cooperates we plan to go to the Anhinga Trail tomorrow over on the east side of the Everglades.