Blogs from Fort Myers Beach, Florida, United States, North America

Moved Seaquel to Ft Myers Beach. I am on a city marina mooring ball. Signed up for a month but I can leave within seventeen days and get a refund. I moved here because it is easy to day sail in the Gulf of Mexico. I have family here and when I came to visit I knew I had to move. Much different feel here. Laid back beach and less city. I bought a ten dollar bicycle at a flea market in Ft Myers and strapped it to the boat. Today I shoved it in the dingy and rode to Walmart to replenish food. Weather has been great. Laid on the beach yesterday. Hope the weather cooperates for a sail in the Gulf next week. Rain coming in for a few days starting tonight. I'm on ... read more

Heute machten wir einen kleinen Ausflug in ein Schutzgebiet mitten in Fort Myers Beach. Das „Matanzas Pass Preserve“, ein an der Ostseite der Insel verstecktes Juwel. Es führen einige miteinander verbundene Trails (2 Meilen) durch das Preserve. Auf der Estero Bay Seite endet das Preserve in einem Mangrovendickicht. Mit etwas Glück kann man dort, von einer Aussichtsplattform aus, Delphine auf der Futtersuche sehen. Bei unserem Besuch hatten sie leider keinen Hunger, oder hatten schon gegessen.... read more

Ben last wrote when we were on our way to Pananama City Beach on Tuesday, 27th November and it was absolutely chucking it down. We found a room at the Flamingo Hotel (it had stopped raining by this point!) then went for a stroll down Pier Park, one of the main streets lined with shops and restaurants with different coloured lights everywhere...a real holiday feel! We ate at Jimmy Buffett's Margaritaville and managed to find something that wasn't fried! On Wednesday, we headed to Wakulla Spring State Park as we knew we could get a river cruise here and possibly see some alligators. We got there at about four o' clock and had just missed the last one. We ended up staying at the Wildwood Inn, just outside Crawfordville. It was in the middle of nowhere ... read more

There isn't much to write today, as it was a pretty uneventful day. We departed the Chelsea House at about 9am, after another mediocre breakfast of cold cereal, and retraced our driving steps up highway 1 through all of the various beautiful keys: Big Pine, Sugar Loaf, Marathon, Matecumbe, Key Largo...and out of the keys. We raced along the highway 41 through the everglades, passing inumerable air boat ride providers, through a number of state wildlife refuge like places, and what I believe was an First Nations Reservation....and out we popped in Naples Florida. Another 30 minutes to an hour up the coast and we were driving through Fort Myers Beach and into our kitchy and cute old FLorida hotel, the Sun Deck Inn. The plastic glowing palm tree, garish colours, multiple decks and rope railings ... read more

Thursday morning (my 60th birthday WooHoo!) we left Moore Haven and headed west on the Okeechobee Waterway on the Caloosahatchee Canal. Around LaBelle, a charming Old-Florida town, it becomes the Caloosahatchee River. We reached the Ortona Lock, with its 8’ drop a little after 11 and were leaving it 10 minutes later. The Franklin Lock near Olga, is the last one on the OWW, and is on the same 7-1-7 schedule as the St. Lucie Lock. It was close to 3 when we got there and our intention was to tie up at the Corps of Engineers dock next to the dam and spend the night. Our luck, the facility’s docks and rest rooms were closed for the week. So we tied up, instead, to the mooring dolphins next to the docks and were comfortably secure ... read more