Boxing Day (Dec 26th): Ft Meyers Beach & Sanibel Island

We weren't sure how busy everything was going to be today but traffic wasn't too bad as we got out and about reasonably early. Also the weather wasn't as wonderful as it had been, it was a bit windy (I know, still 30+ degrees warmer than PA, LOL!), so we made our way out to Fort Meyers beach, at the tip of the mainland. There is a partially protected area here for tortoise, you can see their burrows all over but there wasn't a lot of evidence of them. As we walked along, we were lucky enough to spot one - and get photos - just inside the fence, when we turned quickly to walk away, we must have startled it as it moved very swiftly, far faster than you'd expect, backwards into its burrow, which was deep.





We walked the trail onto the beach, seeing evidence of small horseshoe crabs, sadly no dolphins or manatees were spotted, just quite a few osprey in their nests.

Rather than go back to the campground, we drove to Sanibel Island as we were already relatively close. It's quite strange driving between all the Causeway Islands via many bridges to get onto Sanibel, fishermen were everywhere!

We went to the closest end of the island first to look at the lighthouse, which is quite different to the one we visited on St Simons Island. This one is perched atop a metal structure, no housing or winding staircase in sight.



I'd read that Bowmans Beach was a nice, secluded beach to go to, so we headed towards the opposite end of the island. Clearly, I was not the only one who'd read this information as the beach was pretty busy, despite the wind. The tide was reasonably high and still coming in, which made for somewhat of a narrow beach. The waves were breaking at a 45 degree angle to the shore; the surfers were doing well but when they came in, they were commenting that the currents were incredibly strong. The water temperature did not make it especially inviting anyway but we certainly did not encourage the kids to put their suits on.







The playground on the way to the car park was cool, it had a huge spider's web for the kids to climb in. Additionally, there was a rock wall for them to climb up and across - glad I was 'spotting' Nate, he has a profound belief in his own abilities which is sometimes a tad misguided....





Our intention was to get the kids into bed at a reasonable time, however, we got chatting and the kids headed off to play with their friends, before we knew it, it was close to 11! It was our last night there and so nice to be able to sit, chat and relax with friends, also knowing our journey the next day was somewhat shorter than previous moves, made it easier to be flexible.