We’ve been in Fort Myers Beach for 4 days now and you may be wondering how we are spending our time. In all honesty, we have been pretty lazy. There are some stressful things going on in our home life and wider circle at the moment which I’m not going to write about, so whilst juggling and fretting over those, we have just wanted to chill and zone out this week. And our little resort in Fort Myers Beach has proved to be the ideal home from home.

For those who don’t know the geography of western Florida – the Gulf side – there are a whole chain of off shore islets/islands that have been linked to the mainland and each other in many places by a series of bridges. So, often there will be a town named XXX and another town out on the islet called XXX-Beach. It’s not just the west coast actually, this occurs all around the Florida coast – Miami is a prime example, Tampa, Clearwater, Fort Lauderdale and Fort Myers.

We are in Fort Myers Beach which is linked south to more islets. It is also linked to the mainland and Fort Myers proper by a bridge at this end of the island, very near where we are staying, quite a spectacular sight. This side of the islet chain makes for a very sheltered boat mooring location as the island stands between the mainland and the open sea. A lot of marinas and hurricane harbours in the area. Our location is surrounded by marinas and we have enjoyed watching the boats come and go, even being lifted out/put into the water by a giant pallet crane contraption. The beach is spectacular – white, talcum powder sand – but sadly we have come at a time when the coast is being affected by Red Tide. This blight is common here on the Gulf and I’ve encountered it before and much worse than it is at the moment. It generally occurs in the hot summer months. Red Tide is a harmful algal bloom caused by a naturally occurring alga (a plant-like microorganism) called Karenia brevis or K. brevis. When K. brevis appears in large quantities – typically in the Gulf of Mexico – it can turn ocean water red, brown, or green.

It’s really not safe to go into the water and more than that it robs oxygen from the water and causes large scale death of fish and other marine creatures which further pollutes the water. There doesn’t seem to be anything practical that can be done other than to clear the algae and the dead fish as quickly as possible. Not a pleasant thing. We have had a morning on the beach which was lovely but really it is too hot to be there and not be able to swim.

So the pool it has been and we’ve enjoyed it and enjoyed chatting and exchanging stories with other guests here many of whom have been coming for decades, or even inherited the apartment from their parents. We are very happy we chose to exchange one of our timeshare weeks here, it’s a very personal, very home from home sort of place. They even have bikes, beach chairs, beach trolleys, floats, all sorts to rent. There are many waterside restaurants and bars all around us but we have continued to self cater. It saves us so much money and to be honest it’s a pleasure to eat in and have a few drinks on our balcony watching the sun go down over the water.

There are dolphins out in the shelter of the water and many pelicans also feeding on the small schools of fish that are around the docks.

We have ventured into Fort Myers, driving over that spectacular bridge. After 5 weeks, I needed to get my nails done and we turned that into a mini explore. We found a huge Walmart and couldn’t resist a fuddle around there. Henry Ford and Thomas Edison both had winter holiday homes here very close to each other and they have been turned into museums. We may go and visit them. Thomas Edison’s laboratory is apparently interesting and the gardens are lovely. I went to his house in New Jersey decades ago and well remember that. The sunset and dawn here are very spectacular and indeed at the moment with a full moon, we have that too. Last night the moon rose through the supports of the bridge which perfectly framed it for a few minutes.

Today we are going on a boat trip out to sea so I will write about that next time.