Each time we visit Sanibel and Captiva Islands, we realize what a long trip it actually is. We are staying at the blue dot, St. James City on Pine Island, FL. It’s only about 6 miles from Sanibel by boat but by car it’s 48 miles which equates to two hours because of all the twists and turns and beach goer traffic. The dark blue line shows the route we take each time we venture over.
We went to Captiva Island for dinner on Wednesday after visiting the Shell Museum on Sanibel Island. WE thought we were getting there early as we left the campsite at 2:00 for an early dinner. We headed to the Mucky Duck Pub which everyone says has terrific sunsets but even at 4:00 people were already there eating and drinking and there were no parking places for our big truck. We drove to a nearby plaza and had ice cream and made a shirt purchase (sign said we couldn’t park there unless we were shopping there so I was just trying to follow the rules). We were able to finally find a seat at the bar at the Mucky Duck. People were lined up on the beach with chairs and all of the outdoor seating was filled and we just happened to be standing next to two people who left the bar so we grabbed their seats. We had already decided we would take our pictures of the sunset and then find another place to eat, but luck was with us. And yes, the sunset was beautiful. I was almost as intrigued with the number of people watching as I was with the sunset.
Yesterday we returned to Sanibel to spend our last day shelling. In case I haven’t mentioned it yet, shelling is my new favorite activity. If I lived here I would do it EVERY DAY. Today we are sorting the shells and cleaning them with a little bleach in hopes that they won’t break on the ride home. We found out the best places to find conchs and were able to find the most we had ever found. Some areas have more shells than others and when we would see a large amount of shells on the beach, we would go to the edge of the ledge and watch them come over the ledge. Catching them before the tide sent them back into the ocean was a real challenge but so much fun. I bought a few books that gave more information on the shells and one thing that we learned was that lightning whelks can be left handed or right handed. one in 10,000 Lightning Whelks are right handed. All that we found were left handed. The last picture below shows two of the whelks, one left and one right handed. Now we are trying to decide how to best display our shells when we return home.
Today we are cleaning up around the campsite and preparing for our travels back to NC this weekend. Tomorrow we will drive to the Jacksonville/St. Mary’s KOA campground for an overnight stay, then home to NC on Sunday!
Camping Konneys 