2.17.16 – 2.18.16 – Ft. Myers Area

Working our way around Florida, we have now come down the Atlantic side, Key Largo, the Everglades, and are now working our way up the gulf coast side.  We wanted to see Ft. Myers area because our friends Tom and Bobbi winter there.  This is the first place where we got some real beach time, sand shells, birds, and waterfront restaurants … the whole experience.

Sanibel Island was beautiful, but the traffic to and fro was bad.  There is a campground on the island that could be a fun place to stay, if we were to return.  There is a shell museum with a naturalist talk where we learned more about shells and mollusks than we ever thought we wanted to know. 

These beautiful shell art Valentines were made in the 1800's.  They were not made by sailors to pass the time, but rather, were made in the Caribbean as tourist items for sailors on whaling ships to bring home to loved ones.

Shells historical used for cameo style carvings

These patterned indentations in the sand are the marks made by the snail as it moved across the sand.  Experts can identify the mollusk by the mark it leaves as the marks are different one mollusk to another.

This bird worked very hard to pluck the low tide exposed oysters out of their shells.

Kris picked up many shells on Sanibel Island, dragged them back to the campsite, gave them a bath, bagged them up and tucked them away in the RV.  A couple days later, our little house smelled like something had died in it.  Double and triple bagging solved that problem.  She can deal with them when we get home.

After lunch overlooking the harbor, we walked over to see the fishing boats.  

The shrimp fishing had been pretty good.  We talked to the young men on the boat who grew up in fishing families.  They live in New Orleans and fish down in Ft. Myers area this time of year. 

Stinky is traveling really well.  He’s absolutely exhausted at the end of a day.  Night night.

Next post pelicans and herons