Sanibel Island

We woke up on Tuesday morning in Fort Meyers at the Holiday Inn and peeked out the blinds to see a beautiful day! We enjoyed our free breakfast at the hotel and then went to explore!

Our goal was to see Sanibel Island and the Fort Meyers Beach area. Debating what to do first, we decided to hit Sanibel Island right away.

I only know about Sanibel Island because that was my golden retriever Surf’s AKC registered name – First String’s Sanibel. I hoped that one day I’d get to see this lovely island, and because I knew the name, I also followed it in the news to know Hurricane Ian hit the area hard about 18 months ago.

The damage was evident as we made our way towards the causeway to the island. It looked like sea water had come on shore and killed off large swaths of trees and vegetation.

We noticed traffic was slow too, maybe the causeway was still having repairs and construction due to the hurricane damage when parts of it were washed out?

But the day was so lovely we just enjoyed the scenery and crept along towards the toll booth.

When we were booking this accommodation, I had looked on Sanibel Island, and Captiva Island, and on Fort Meyers Beach, but most things were closed still from the hurricane.

I wonder how long this causeway has even been here, because Sanibel Island is a way’s across the water. I bet boats were once necessary to visit this place. (Google says the causeway replaced ferry traffic in 1963!)

There were many barges around the causeway, bringing in rock to continue building the causeway foundation back up.

As we reached Sanibel Island, the first thing I noticed was their Chamber of Commerce Visitor’s Information Center on the right. I convinced Jeff to pull in and I went in to get some tips on how to plan our day. The two ladies I talked to there were lovely!! They gave me a map, highlighted a few places we should go, and then shared more information about the current state of the community. They said almost every business was still closed. Many just walked away, or restarted their business in Fort Meyers and didn’t look back. They said to look for the white flags near the road with “OPEN” on them to signify the few places that were in operation.

I love their sign as you walk into their visitor center: “Please wipe snow from shoes before entering building!” 🤣

They also explained the foresight that some of the early residents had for the island, to keep it natural and preserved. There are rules here that you can’t build over 3 stories high, you can’t have nighttime lights (to preserve the dark sky viewing), and that a huge area is preserved in the J.N. “Ding” Darling National Wildlife Refuge that runs along the north side of the island. Ding was a cartoonist from the 1920’s to 1940’s and was instrumental in its preservation.

This refuge had a fabulous information center. I learned that Florida has coyotes and bobcats, there is even a Florida panther! There are alligators and turtles and so many birds! Even a neat looking marsh rabbit! Beyond the interpretive displays, the gift shop is really nice. I bought a beautiful mug that highlights all the island’s features, and the birds, and shells. And it somehow reminds me of the souvenirs my Grandma and Grandpa would bring back from their travels to Florida. Remember those laminated souvenir placemats? I remember staying over at their house and picking which placemat picture I wanted to look at while I ate. I remember there was a Florida Keys one I liked to daydream about while I was eating my breakfast! I wonder if they were ever on this island? I’m pretty sure my Uncle Paul has spent time near here fixing up his friend’s place that was damaged in the hurricane too.

The preserve has a 4 mile gravel road, one-way, that you can pay $10 to explore. You can drive, or walk, or ride your bike. There were bikes every where, and as many bike paths as roads! The ladies at the visitor’s center told me there are bike rental places where you can rent one to ride for the day/week.

We instantly saw lots of birds!

Which instantly reminded me of that big dilemma I had when we were packing for this trip. Binoculars? Or no binoculars?

If I were to think like bird-watching Aunt Cecilia, I’m sure she wouldn’t go to even the grocery store without binoculars.

But I knew we were travelling with friends and were going to be in the city, so I didn’t pack them.

MISTAKE!!!

Because here we were in a wildlife preserve, surrounded by new birds for my short little new life list!

We did our best, between taking iPhone pictures (didn’t haul the real Nikon camera either) and zooming in, using Merlin’s sound and photo identification tools, and using the Audibon’s app to read the bird and habitat descriptions to narrow it down. Using this system, I added the following new birds to my life list!

• Boat-tailed grackle
• Snowy egret
• American white pelican
• Great egret
• White ibis
• Anhinga
• Tricolored Heron
• Brown pelican
• Prairie warbler
• Blue-winged teal
• Northern mockingbird (Florida’s state bird!)
• Limpkin
• Roseate Spoonbill

And a few others that I see elsewhere, but wanted to note here:

• osprey
• turkey vulture
• bald eagle
• muscovy duck
• mallard ducks

There were so many ducks and shore birds that I couldn’t get close enough to ID, although I could use my big screen and zoom in on some pictures now that we’re home, but that’s kinda cheating.

Instantly we were in love with this special place. We were dreaming out loud about coming back. But not just a day. I mean you’d want to do a week, no, two weeks, no, three weeks would really help you feel at home. And we’d have bikes and could bike this every day with binoculars, and watch the birds, and the little lizards we were seeing, and there were fisherman trying their luck. We could get fresh produce and fruit and prepare our own meals. Ahhhhh yes! And key lime pie! Jeff was longing for some key lime pie!

There were other people wandering their way through the refuge. We’d drive a bit, then stop, get out and walk around, watch the birds, take the side hikes, then drive on a bit further down.

There is hurricane damage everywhere, but also, so much life.

Could you imagine living somewhere so beautiful where you could do this everyday?

Look at this crab shell!

We met a volunteer who spends her winters here on Sanibel. She is from the Boston area and volunteers for the refuge. Which means she just hangs out and watches the birds and other wildlife and answers questions from visitors. What a dream role!! She had only decided to come down for a few weeks this year because she heard that just no one was around due to the depressed state of the island and its economy, and she was regretting the short trip already and wished she booked a longer trip.

We started talking to her about real estate since we had decided to retire immediately and move there. She said the prices hadn’t really come down at all, (yet?), although where there were just a few listings before the hurricane, now there were about 400 listings across Sanibel and Captiva Island.

The little lizards, whatever they were, could move so fast! And then just get sun drunk. They were fun to find and watch.

We saw tons of fish! They are mullet’s and were pretty big!

The birds were amazing. Looks at these guys!

This next one is the Anhinga. They stab fish with their sharp bill and then toss it into the air to catch and swallow.

Here’s the tricolored heron:

It’s kinda funny that I have lately been thinking about getting a bike again. Not a mountain bike this time, but just a cruiser to leisurely drive around town on. Exactly like all the bikes I saw on Sanibel! With a little basket. So cute! Wouldn’t this be the life, just casually biking around?

All the gravel they used to fix the washouts was really unique (for us). It was full of crushed little shells!

After getting through the park, we went to one of the beach’s the ladies had highlighted. This one was Bowman’s Beach. You can use your phone to pay for parking by the hour, then walk out to the beach.

Our first Florida beach! Look at this beauty!

Imagine when we live here, going to walk this beach every day!

There really wasn’t many people, and those that were there stayed near the trail to the parking lot.

It was warm, and we knew we should put sunscreen on. Yet. Would a bit of a sunburn be THAT bad? Nah, let’s not use it!

Look at our happy faces!

We may not have had binoculars, but we did pack sandals. And we wore those sandals right into the water. And the Gulf water wasn’t even really that cold! But the force of those waves! I’d be a little leery swimming in that. Felt like a strong undertow! A few people were swimming though.

This is heaven right? It’s February!

And look at all these little shells! Piles of them!

We had prepaid for a couple hours of parking, so we walked down the beach to the left for an hour, passing almost all of the people, picking up pretty shells. This beach was SO clean. Nothing but shells. No garbage. No debris. No beach glass. No gold coins.

Yep, definitely heaven.

Most of the shells weren’t too big, and many were broken, but they were all interesting to look at.

Once I got a hand full of good shells, I wanted to audit them and keep only the best, but I had this little backpack bag that made it too easy to keep dumping them in there for a later purging, yet somehow, you just know these all came home with me (they did).

When we were on the boardwalk coming out to this beach, the family behind us spotted a snake in the shadows. I was fortunately too far ahead to have any desire to go back and see. But the lizards weren’t scary like snakes!

After almost 2 hours walking along the beach, we remembered the volunteer at the refuge describing a spot where she often sees the big pink birds, the rosey spoonbills, AND she saw a gator there on the weekend! We had to go back into the refuge to get to the spot, and that was okay because the receipt from your $10 is good for the whole day of admission to the refuge.

We had to park and walk in a trail. Then we saw this:

Was this finally going to happen!? Were we going to see our first gator? And was it really going to be from this walking path? 😬 Like with our bare legs and sandals?

After a walk along a trail, it diverted off onto a series of boardwalks over the water. There were these neat poop displays where you got to guess what the scat was from. Then you can flip the lid and see the description. The gator poop was the biggest, because they eat their prey whole, don’t ya know!?

Oh yeah, this is fine.

Is that a…..

Nope. Not a gator.

As we went further on the boardwalk, we could see all the birds perched up in the trees. The boardwalk led to a two-story gazebo with benches.

Jeff spotted what I thought was just a branch, but it was a snoozing limpkin bird in the trees!

Those pink spoonbills are amazing to see! At one point they got spooked and flew up in the air for a bit.

I wished I had a camera and a good zoom lens to get a picture of their bill!

The herons were hanging out here too.

And there very well could have been a gator hanging around somewhere, but we didn’t spot one.

Here’s the birds you can see in the refuge:

It was getting later in the afternoon, and we still had so much to see. We had several more beaches on the island, plus the lighthouse, then we still had to get over to the Fort Meyers Beach spit of land.

I set Apple Maps to Fort Meyers Beach, thinking we’d just stop places along the way, but the road ahead was red on the map, and we were quickly stopped.

It’s going to take how long to get 22 km, hours? Oh no!

We were able to get back onto the main drag, Periwinkle Way, but then we were stopped dead. Every 10-15 minutes we’d move a few car lengths. Nothing more. This wasn’t good.

I flipped through radio stations and checked online, but could see no mention of an accident or any other kind of incident.

After an hour of this traffic, the sun started setting.

Was this all we were going to see for the rest of the day? This traffic?

At one point a guy ahead of us jumped out of his car and ran into the trees to take a leak.

It gave us plenty of time though to see the current state of the island. Some homes that were built a story up on piers, with parking below, seemed to have weathered the hurricane better. But there were foreclosure and for sale signs all over. Motels were closed. Unraveling, worn tarps covered roofs. Shingles were missing. Fences were up. Here’s the Dairy Queen, closed and damaged.

I heard the water came over the island in a storm surge and it was likely over 10 feet high! Imagine!

Want to buy a gas station?

By the time we got near the causeway, it was evident that there was no catastrophic accident. This was just congested traffic. There was traffic control people at a couple of the intersections and police directing the traffic. It took us 2.5 hours to go 4 kilometers!!! What was happening, was people in the know (ie. not us) took all the side streets, then were waved in, or let in to merge, at all of the intersections, meaning our long tail of the traffic never got a chance to move ahead.

And many people were on bikes. That seems like the best way to travel the island! On the bike paths! Everyone seemed so fit and healthy!

It was just about dark by the time we got back to Fort Meyers, meaning the Fort Meyers Beach plan was out, as was any more sight seeing. What an absolute shame. Gone were our plans to spend our winters here. Phooey. Guess we’ll stay in Dawson and keep working.

It all seemed so easily solvable if they just made the side streets one way so you can only exit the main street and you had to go join the back of the traffic line? I don’t know. But the internet informed me later that this is a DAILY occurrence. I was so disappointed that the ladies in the visitor center didn’t warn us about this. Instead of wasting all that time creeping along the road thinking an accident would clear up any second, we could have just walked along another beach or had a supper in one of the few restaurants that had reopened. Argh!!

Gotta say though, sunsets in Florida are absolutely breathtaking!

Even the causeway was really slow.

Jeff’s favourite fast food place is Wendy’s, so I found one nearby, but they wouldn’t let us inside the restaurant either! Drive through only! Was this due to worker shortage? Crime? Or they just didn’t like the cut of our jib?

Not wanting to spend anymore time waiting around for anything, even a nice meal, we found a McDonalds and had a quick bite before going to back to the hotel. Unfortunately, while they did have a heated pool, it closed at sunset! Jeff took advantage of the time though and did a load of laundry for us while I was researching our next day’s plans.

We did get a bit sunburned. Both of us on the back of our calves. And Jeff’s neck was red and sore. My sunhat had a back flap that kept most of the sun off, and we had packed aloe for this exact reason. And now we have a bit of a tan!

I got up early the next morning and was about to get in the shower when we had our first American emergency alert on our phones. So much for letting Jeff sleep in! There was a kidnapped child in Broward County. (I read later she was found safe).

We had another free breakfast at the hotel and then checked out. We were departing for home the next day, and had a hotel room booked near the Orlando airport for that night. But the route we were going to take back to Orlando was up for debate.

We were planning to take the “gator alley” interstate across the top of the everglades, so we could finally see a gator! Then we were going to drive up the east shore, north of Miami, through Fort Lauderdale, Boca Raton, West Palm Beach, etc. But would we even see anything? That sounded like a lot of busy roads and concrete views, and when I Googled for more information about the chance of gator spotting from gator alley, the reviews weren’t promising.

So I started Googling for information where we would be guaranteed to spot a gator. And the number one spot was the Gatorland amusement park a fellow started in Kissimmee. But we wanted to see the natural gators! In their natural habitat!

There are ponds absolutely everywhere in Florida and I read that any one of them could have a gator (or more) in them! Wild!

The next place everyone was suggesting was a backroad, Loop Rd. in the everglades, where there were so many gators, the internet warned to not even get out of your car, but the road was risky to travel in the wet season. Were we in the wet season? It had just rained for a few days. Did this Nissan Rogue have four wheel drive? All wheel? We thought risking this seemed silly.

The third suggestion online was Lake Okeechobee, Florida’s largest freshwater lake, that is said to have 10,000 – 30,000 gators in it. WHAT? OH MY! That’s a lot of gators. We opted for this plan. It would mean a much shorter drive back to Orlando, via the inland roads, not on the main interstates. Sounds good to me!

It was a lovely drive through the countryside! We were going by farms and cattle ranches and sugarcane fields.

We found the main dock in the town of Okeechobee where many gators are said to have been spotted. I was suddenly super leery of walking along the water or the shrubs, especially after watching a YouTube video where a massive gator surfaced right beside some fishermen and they didn’t even notice it at first, and then I read all the comments that said you don’t have to worry about the gators you see, it’s the ones you don’t see that are watching (and hunting) you. AHHHH!

Lake Okeechobee was so big, you couldn’t even see across it! And the entire lake is just 9 feet deep or less!

Beautiful place!

A lovely spot, with bathrooms, picnic tables, parking, and birds to watch. Even free wifi!

But no gators 🙁

This guy popped up on the wharf to say hi though!

I wonder what he is? Let’s zoom in.

Maybe this is close enough to a gator.

Finally Jeff touched a palm tree!

We decided to visit a Dollar General since we saw these stores everywhere, to check them out. In all the hiking videos we watch, we often see thru-hikers resupply at Dollar General. And it was immediately evident why. It is full of snacks and processed food meals. So much fun American snacks to check out! And candy! America is the land of amazing snack and junk food! We got a couple snacks to have for lunch and then got back on the map to see where else we could get near the lake, and found a boat launch near that dock.

Lake Okeechobee is a well known fishing lake and people gator hunt too. We saw lots of boat trailers, even a truck and trailer from New Brunswick!

There were people sitting in a couple of lawnchairs here, fishing. So I guess the gator threat isn’t all I dreamt it up to be in my head? Maybe I feel like a tourist who comes to the Yukon expecting grizzly bears everywhere? But we don’t have tens of thousands of them living in one lake!!

No gators, no gators, wait, WHAT’S THAT!?!

Oh, that’s a raccoon.

And he was really interested in the man sitting in this blue car eating lunch. In fact, he stood up leaning on the door below the guy’s open window!

We stopped at the big dock again to do one last gator check and noticed we could see the plume of smoke from the sugar cane waste burn after the harvest. There were a few of these piles lit up and you could see the smoke for miles.

We drove on to Orlando, past many more cattle ranches. We saw Brahman cattle, really neat looking cows with huge humps behind the necks and the cutest large droopy ears. We were glad to see this part of Florida too.

Jeff had a terrific idea of finding an REI in Orlando, since we were getting into the city in the late afternoon and would have a bit of available time. We found one, and did a bit of shopping. I found a nice pair of hiking pants. And a pair of used shoes! I loved my Altra Olympus 4 hiking shoes. Nice minimal yet super cushioned shoes. But when I replaced them with the newer Olympus 5, they just don’t fit the same. My toes bump into the end sometimes, even though they are plenty big enough, unless I heel lock my heel in with the laces in the extra lace holes, but the laces are too short on the redesign to do this easily. I’ve always heard ravings about the Hoka Speedgoat shoes and I found a slightly used pair that was returned for only $50. They fit really perfectly. I walked around the store with one Hoka on one foot, and my Altra’s on the other, and the Hoka felt more comfortable? But rather than jump ship, I bought these used ones so I get to see if I really like them better. I wore them all the way home, and they hug my foot in a way I didn’t like and they have more of an arch support (I don’t think these are considered minimal shoes), but the cushioning is really lovely. Here’s a picture of them on the way home, in Vancouver, while we waited for our luggage:

Anyway, back to Orlando. We had found a deal on Expedia for the Ramada by Wyndham Suites Orlando Airport. It was okay, but really felt dated and lacking a lot of maintenance inside. In fact, the wooden bathroom door swelled shut during my shower the next morning and I needed Jeff to get me out!

It was near a Denny’s so we walked over for our last American dinner of the trip. Jeff got a huge double burger and I had a mac and cheese with brisket dish that was AMAZING.

And one last Florida sunset!

We spent the rest of our evening repacking, filling out our Arrive Canada app pre-arrival declaration, and tallying up our receipts for the border crossing. We really didn’t buy that much!

One more post to go, travelling home, and reflecting on the trip. Coming soon!