Sat, Jan 2, 2010 - Ft Myers Beach, FL

Around 10:30 am, we picked up Steve and Dawn and headed out for a sail around Estero Island. Locally, this trip is referred to as “The Loop” so, for us, this was “The Little Loop” inside the “Great Loop.” We had a nice sail on the Gulf side with a north wind at 10-20 knots. The sky was sunny and clear and the temperature was in the lower to mid 60’s. The beaches were busy and everyone was out enjoying the day.

Before passing through the Big Carlos Pass bascule bridge, we dropped the sail and motored our way under the bridge and through some very shallow channels to find Mound Key. Gale was interested in seeing the Indian mounds on this key left by the Calusa Indians. For hundreds of years the southern tip of Florida was the hunting and fishing ground of the Calusa Indians. That the Calusas inhabited many of the Florida west coast islands is evidenced by the shell mounds left by them. Of the three such mounds originally on Estero Island, only one remains today. This one on the bay at the end of Connecticut Street, known, naturally enough, as “The Shell Mound,” is the highest point on the Island. Several shell mounds still exist on Dog Key and on Mound Key. The latter key, now part of the Koreshan State Park, has the largest ones in this area.

We dropped the anchor just outside the channel near Mound Key and made some lunch. As we were getting ready to sit down and have our meal, Steve noticed that the boat was drifting closer to the channel marker.
We were dragging anchor, but fortunately, we did not run aground and were able to set it securely and enjoy our lunch. We remembered to bring out the key lime pie for dessert this time! While Maureen and Dawn did the dishes and cleaned up the galley, Gale and Steve set out in the dinghy to find the park and the mounds. The keys were covered in dense mangroves and it looked rather “jungle-y” to the girls who were happy to stay on board. Steve and Gale found some mounds but neither of them had a camera with them to record the sights.

High tide was around 3:30 pm today which was a good time to finish the shallowest part of “The Loop” and head back to our mooring. It was a little after 4 pm when we started back. At one point we found ourselves outside of the channel and scraping bottom. Not to worry, the tide and the wind worked in our favor this time and we simply floated back into deep enough water where we could motor out of trouble. We were secured once again on Mooring #14 at 5:45 pm just as the sun was setting. We dinghied to shore and the four of us had a nice dinner at the Matanzas Inn. We said our goodbyes and wished The Fords fair sailing and warm weather on their Mexican cruise with their kids.