The jump from Sanibel to Ft. Myers Beach was only five miles across the channel called Matanzas Pass. This is the opening from the Gulf into San Carlos Bay which has Sanibel on one side and Ft. Myers on the other side. We pulled anchor and headed over toward Ft. Myers. On the way there we called a marina that has mooring balls available to see if they had space for us. They did! It was going to cost us $18/ night, which is quite a deal for the area, also considering it was New Years Eve. We were to the mooring ball by mid morning and got settled in. As we were settling in, I noticed a sailboat come by going for another mooring ball a few boats down. I had noticed he looked to be by himself and he was having a hard time completing the maneuver of driving the boat and then running up to fish out the floating line attached to the ball. I yelled to Lauren I would be right back and jumped in the dinghy. Frank was mad I wasn’t taking him, so he started barking, but I took off to help if I could. I approached him as he was circling around again and called out to him I would assist. He was thankful and I basically hung on to the front of his sailboat while he turned us around, and when we got close, I reached out and grabbed the line to hand it up to him. Once he was secure and we were done chatting a bit, I returned to get Lauren. Now she and I headed in to the marina to check in and walk around the town a bit.
Ft. Myers was packed with tourists. We are in Florida ‘in season’. Everyone who wants to get away from the cold and snow is in Florida now. We went to the beach and it too was packed. It was fun to watch all the people. We soon found ourselves thirsty and saw a bar which we thought was a brewery. Smokin Oyster Brewery which we enjoyed some happy hour treats and found out they don’t brew anything there, but do have beers made for them. After this we walked back to the beach for a stroll along the water. Funny- Ft. Myers Beach is actually on Estero Island. The beach goes on for miles it seems and it is wide, with white sand and people everywhere! We found a spot to sit and hang out for a while while people watching. We continued to wander down and decided to stop at a beachside bar to wait for sunset. We ended up at Shuckers Cottage Bar and snagged a great table on the beach while we waited for the sun to set. We ate some snacks as well, and Lauren was starting to not feel too hot. She was coming down with the cold I had over Christmas, and it was coming fast. We made it to sunset and retreated back to the boat. I could see she was really not feeling well, and she was in bed and asleep by 9pm. I tried to stay up for the New Year, but ended up falling asleep as well. Happy New Year!