A few years ago when we first learned about the Loop,  I started reading blogs written by people already on the journey. There were a ton of them,  and there were a few that were must-reads for me.

One of them described a trip to Sanibel Island, and it has stuck with me until today when it became our turn to go to Sanibel Island.

Yesterday,  Owen had to work. When he finished,  he called the Tarpon Bay Explorers at Ding Darling Park near our anchorage to see if we could dock there. The guy who answered the phone said no, unless we were coming to use the bathroom.

So we took the dinghy about 4.5 miles to Sanibel Marina,  where the friendly person said we could pull up to their dock for lunch.

If Owen had been by himself,  he would have made the trip in a much shorter time, but one of us is a little nervous about going full bore across open water in a 10 foot dinghy while 50 foot yachts and 20 foot center consoles with no regard for life or humanity whiz by willy-nilly. One of us is a wuss, so we hummed along at a safe and reasonable speed and arrived safely to the dock.

There’s a restaurant on site, but we wanted to do some exploring. We headed out to Periwinkle Way and hung a right. The main drag was packed, and traffic moved slowly.  It was a bit of a hike toward civilization, but the pedestrian and bike path was just right.

We came to the Lazy Flamingo and had lunch. I had fish tacos and Owen had a burger.  Almost as soon as we sat down,  a server accidentally brought us a heaping portion of garlic bread. Er, we didn’t order that.  But it looked amazing,  so we decided we better order some for ourselves.  It was good.

We walked a little more toward town,  but we were on a bit of a deadline as we needed to make the 4.5 mile trek back to the boat before dark. We vowed to come back again today.

This morning, I called Tarpon Bay Explorers and asked if we could bring our 10 foot dinghy to their dock so we could rent bikes from them.  The answer this time was yes, BUT we had to be able to completely remove our boat from the water and put it on the grass.  We could not dock or beach.

Well, our dinghy weighs about 120 pounds, the motor 72 pounds, and we have about 30 pounds of gear. I thought we might be able to drag the dinghy into the grass,  but lifting it would be questionable. We’d play it by ear.

When we got there,  there were a bunch of rented kayaks on the beach where we would pull up the boat. We pulled up to a dock instead, and a worker came by immediately and said we could not dock.  When I told him we were waiting for the kayaks to be moved and we were renting bikes, he told us to go wait out away from the dock until there was room for us at the ramp.

Eventually,  we got to the boat ramp,  and we realized there was no way we could lift the boat all the way up the ramp and over a gravel driveway to the grass. We were about to give up when a worker offered to help. Three of them came over and got the job done with Owen.

While this was happening,  I went in to pay for the bikes. I learned that if you don’t rent from them, they charge $15 to park there on the grass. It’s free if you rent kayaks or bikes there. They appreciated that we had called first. The rules seem to be new or confusing,  because the workers inside chatted about them for a moment.

Riding a bike is just like riding a bike,  so after about a quarter mile I was as expert a rider as I was when I was 8 and a bike was my only mode of transport. We took off toward town and stopped at a bookstore that was like heaven. 

Everyone knows that the very best bookstore in the world is Renaissance Books at the Milwaukee Airport (Everyone?  Yes, everyone.) Gene’s Books on Sanibel Island was the very next best thing,  but with more new books than used. And there were multiple locations and buildings! They had to have more books than a large Barnes and Noble.

We went to the second location first (not knowing yet there was another store across and just down the street), and we were in awe of the selection. The American history section was MASSIVE. We looked around for a little bit and then decided we better keep moving our we would be there all day. 

We rode a bit more and came to Periwinkle Place, a collection of shops. We went in a few and stopped at Pinnochio’s Ice Cream.  We indulged. It was good.

Back on the bikes, we rode over to the Sanibel Historical Village, which we discovered was closed. Instead, we rode over to the water and spent a little while strolling the busy beach.

Then we went to the other Gene’s Books, and we discovered the buildings full of books. These were mostly fiction.  For fun,  I decided to buy a book from the back wall of the back building.  You know,  the international fiction building.

Not done yet, we went back to the first store so Owen could get a book. He chose a biography of Aaron Burr. I found another book by David McCullough, and we decided we better get out of there. 

By then it was time to get back to the dinghy and to the boat.  We biked back to Tarpon Explorers at the Ding Darling park.

We returned the bikes, and they helped put the dinghy back in without incident.  We dinghied back to the boat and sat on the deck reading our new purchases until sunset. I made dinner while Owen found the football game.

At night we stepped outside when we heard fireworks in the distance. What a surprise to also see dolphins around the boat! They kept their distance, but we could hear them breathe. It was a glorious few minutes watching them surface, seeing the bright stars in the cloudless sky, and admiring the fireworks visible on the horizon. Then the mosquitoes came and put a quick end to the outdoor portion of our New Year’s Eve. Sanibel island was a great place to end 2021!