Day 154: Tuesday, February 5, 2013
Port to Port: Fort Myers Beach
Underway: 0:00 am Motor Off: 0:00 pm Miles Traveled: 0 Stayed At: Marina
Mile to Mile: After the $2.99 breakfast special at the Lani Kai (on the roof overlooking the beach) we walked up the beach to Bowditch Park to go on a volunteer guided walking tour of the park. The volunteer guiding the tour was from Minnesota and now lives in Florida 8 months of the year. His tour was funny and educational at the same time. We learned a lot about the plant and animal life in the park and the history of Estero Island. I now know the difference between red, black and white mangroves – that should be useful someday. We also learned a lot about barrier islands – how they form, how they continuously change and how important they are to the environment. The knowledge we gained answered some questions we had and will make future walks much more interesting. And it was free. And it was sunny. And warm. What a nice way to spend a couple of hours in the morning.
And the learnin’ wasn’t over for the day. We stopped by the boat for a few minutes and then walked down to the library to drop off some movies and listen to a presentation on Fossils in Florida. Bill, the President of the Fossil Club of Lee County talked a bit about the prehistoric history of Florida and then did a show and tell of some of the fossils he has found in and around the area – mastadon teeth, horse teeth, megalodon (giant shark) teeth, bones of sloths, panthers and bears – all extinct and some millions of years old. Very cool – I want to find a megalodon tooth. He finds most of them in gravel deposits in local rivers. Nice guy and fun presentation.
In case anybody is interested, the family on OmarSea – the sailboat that was moored here for awhile – has arrived safely in Panama and are exploring the area, fixing things that broke on the crossing (something will always fail or break at sea) and preparing to transit the Panama Canal this week on their way to the Galapagos Islands. If you want to follow their adventures, their blog is at http://omarsea.blogspot.com/. Their post for today is hilarious.
