Fort Myers – 20170214

We rode our bikes over to Lee County's Manatee Park which is about six miles away. Some of the areas we traveled through are on the lower end of the socio-economic scale, a lot of people walking or riding bicycles. We stayed on the sidewalks as much as possible because there were no bike lanes for most of the route. Eventually, we arrived at the park unscathed and were surprised at how nice it was, and the number of people enjoying the paths. We walked along the water's edge looking for Manatees, there were only ten or so; they are difficult to see since they only poke their nose slightly above the water's surface for a breath. With on-site kayak and canoe rentals, it was no surprise the waters were stirred with numerous paddlers, old and young alike. I found a video on YouTube, I don't know the guy but he did a good job capturing the essence of the place.

Our next adventure was to Sidney & Berne Davis Art Center located about two blocks from the marina. It was here that we attended our very first Beatles concert, I mean Mersey Beatles concert. These guys dress and act the parts of the Beatles but they weren't overly ridiculous about it, they were good-natured and having fun with it. The music was, of course, all Beatles and they did a good job, the crowd of about 150 mostly old white people enjoyed dancing in the aisles, especially when they played Twist and Shout. I've posted some pictures and videos here... if you hear me singing on the video just try to ignore it; I had not drunk enough alcohol at that point in order to unleash the full range of my vocal talent.

Monday (2/13/17) we rented a pickup truck from Enterprise and took our bicycles over to Sanibel Island. It's about 25 miles from the marina (Fort Myers Yacht Basin) and the traffic was not bad at all until we reached the Sanibel Causeway's $6.00 toll station, for the next 10 miles or so we were in bumper-to-bumper slow moving traffic. We finally reached Bowman's Beach, our first destination, and found parking to cost $4.00 per hour; ouch. We coughed up 8 bucks and walked down the beach for an hour then back up the beach for an hour with Kim hunting pretty or unusual shells the whole way. The number of shells was mind boggling, you can literally scoop them up with a shovel and not make a dent in the numbers. After leaving the beach we drove over to Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge to ride bikes, good news right off the bat at the refuge, the parking was free and my National Parks Senior Pass got us in for free. A lot of beautiful birds and more mangroves was about all we saw on our ride, not complaining but we wanted alligators darn it, we see birds and mangroves everytime we're on the ICW. The traffic leaving the island was horrible, we would move 50 feet and sit still for five minutes, move 50 feet and sit still for five minutes over and over again for several miles until it slowly started to thin out; I feel sorry for the folks that live on that island.

I bought a 44 lb Rocna anchor and 160 feet of 5/8 rope along with 40 feet of 5/16 chain. Our friends on the Krogen Manatee Summertime have a Rocna and tell me it has never moved when at anchor. We've only anchored when tied to Kharma, although we have deployed our fortress anchor on a few of those occasions. The fortress may have done the job but I've heard good things about the Rocna from several different people so I decided to get one. Hopefully, we'll find it to be reliable as well.

There is a Farmers Market every Thursday just a few blocks from us and I have found a source of smoked Gouda, my favorite cheese. I bought 1/2 lb the first Thursday and ate it up in just a few days... along with Public's wheat crackers. Last Thursday I bought 2 1/2 lbs of which I still have about 1 lb in the fridge.

Friends we met at Midway Marina on the Tn-Tom were here when we arrived a few weeks ago, we had traveled with Rob and Glenda (Monterey) all the way to Fort Walton. We enjoyed docktails and went out to dinner with them several times since we've been here but they pulled out Monday morning headed for the Keys. Hopefully, we'll run into them again somewhere on the east coast.

We attended a kids parade last Saturday celebrating Edison's birthday. Edison had a winter home here in Fort Myers and they have named roads, bridges, and malls after the man. The kid's parade had kids from schools, dance troops, cub scouts, swim teams and just about any organization centered around kids represented. The main parade is this coming weekend and we hear it's the largest parade in this area complete with fireworks. We're looking forward to it, Kim loves fireworks.

Pictures