An Afternoon on Sanibel Island

By way of a show of support for all of the people currently recovering from Hurricane Irma, I'm posting this post that I wrote about part of our holiday in Western Florida a couple of years ago. It never got published at the time and has sat in my drafts box as a reminder to me of our wonderful holiday. What better time to post it and show the beauty of the this part of the world.  My prayers and good wishes are with everybody affected both in Florida and the Carribean and I wish everyone well in aftermath and with the forthcoming clean up efforts.

The first Sunday we were in the US, we visited a very beautiful place near Fort Myers called Sanibel Island.  It is one of a number of islands off the west coast of Florida, and part of it is a nature reserve.

You have to drive over a long bridge to get to the island, I think there might have been a small toll, there are quite a few toll roads and bridges in Florida, but it was well worth it.  The island is beautiful, definitely worth a visit.  At the end of the island is a lighthouse which we drove up to visit.

The beach here was beautiful.  A mangrove beach with beautiful white sand and clear water.  As soon as we set foot on the beach we saw dolphins frolicking in the water, I think there were two or three of them, but I didn't manage to catch a photograph and anyway my phone camera probably wasn't good enough to pick them out.

We settled down in the shade of some mangroves, taking in the view, reading our books and swimming in the ocean for the afternoon.

A sea anenome washed up at my feet. I'm not sure if it was still alive as it didn't seem to cling to anything and kept getting swept this way and that by the ocean as it lapped at my feet.

Apparently this is good place for shells, I saw the odd interesting one, but didn't take it off the beach.

There was also a small fishing pier and lots of families spending Sunday at the beach. A beautiful place, we were glad that we'd taken the time to visit.

Visiting places like this and seeing the wildlife and nature are one of the things I love most about the US and other places we have visited. It costs very little to spend the day somewhere like this, but when you do it is magical.