Day 121: Thursday, January 3, 2013

Port to Port: Fort Myers Beach

Underway: 0:00 am      Motor Off: 0:00 pm      Miles Traveled: 0      Stayed At: Marina

First Things First: First square rigger ship

Mile to Mile: Another day to catch up on blogging, reading and sightseeing. Not too exciting. We took a long walk down the beach on another sunny warm afternoon. The sights are interesting along the way – lots of bikini girls (and muscle guys) mixed in with other beach lovers of all shapes, sizes and ages who maybe shouldn’t be wearing so little clothing. It is a sight to behold though sometimes hard to forget. Watching the little kids playing on the beach is probably the most fun – it brings back a lot of memories for us about some of our trips to the beach a long, long time ago.

We ended up near the new library so we decided to wander by to check it out. Its Grand Opening is in less than two weeks so we will be able to see it all before we leave. What an amazing new building for such a small community. It’s a bright white three story building with multiple decks facing towards the beach. I’ve never seen so many large print books before – not surprising given the seasonal clientele here. They even painted seascape murals on the walls of the elevator column so when you ride up the glass walled elevator you pass by a forest of kelp, schools of fish, dolphin and shark. They will even have a large enclosed area to display examples of real sand sculptures. What a great community resource – I wish it was open right now.

There are some things you just can’t plan for on this trip. The Lynx Privateer is a perfect example of this. It docked on the end of the pier in front of Nervous Nellies only a stone’s through from the back of our boat. What a treat. The Lynx is a 78’ (122’ including its bowsprit and other extensions) square top-sail schooner built as a replica of a privateer from the War of 1812. It is made of wood and even has cannons and crew in period costumes to complete the period look. (Of course it also has a 200 hp caterpillar diesel hidden somewhere down below to help it along too). They are touring the country on an educational mission and give tours, host parties and weddings and take tourists on cruises to pay their expenses. Another interesting lifestyle for the people who crew her.

After another amazing waterside dinner of grilled pork steaks, fried red potatoes and salads, we relaxed and watched a movie on Netflix and crashed fairly early to rest for another exciting day at Fort Meyers Beach.