Sinking one’s teeth into Sanibel

Ron and Anna Winship

You can take the evening flight from Orange County to New York City

and connect into Miami. If you book it right, there will be only

about an hour and a half between flights.

Alligator Alley (Interstate 75) takes you through 100 miles of

open road and fences on both sides of the highway -- to keep the

alligators from burdening your path to Naples and the West Coast of

Florida. We rolled into Fort Myers about 12:30 p.m., and it took us

about 35 minutes from the interstate to make the Sanibel Causeway, to

Sanibel and Captiva Islands. We couldn’t quite make it to the toll

booth until we stopped at the Tanger Outlet Stores situated about a

mile from the $3 toll booth for the causeway. The weather was cloudy,

but the gulf breezes were warm as we waited in line for a sailboat to

pass under the open drawbridge.

Once on Sanibel, we watched carefully our downloaded Internet maps

of the various streets, which would eventually lead us to our hotel.

We were taken by the tropical breezes, palms and vegetation. After

checking in at the Holiday Inn Sanibel and encountering our very nice

room, we couldn’t wait to walk past the Alligator pool and onto the

beach. Somehow, 70 degrees in Florida seems a lot warmer than 70

degrees in Newport Beach. A few people were taking walks along the

white sand and some searched for seashells in the late afternoon sun

-- seemingly a major pastime on Sanibel.

With some inquiries to the locals, we jumped back into the rental

car to seek out some kind of burger for dinner on Periwinkle Way.

Cheeburger is a 1950s-style diner with 20 varieties of malts and

milkshakes. They have every size burger all the way up to a pound.

Satiated, we retired for the evening to our hotel room, then looked

into the Alligator pool, to see if any wildlife was around. No

alligators, but two very cute sea turtles.

Our second day in Sanibel required a lot of driving and

investigation of just where we had landed. Beautiful homes,

affordable beach resorts and hotels, and tourists shops and centers

are situated across the island along with the J.N. “Ding” Darling

Natural Wildlife Refuge and Habitat sites. Sanibel is home to more

than 5,000 alligators, along with flamingos and a variety of sea

birds. We were taken by the elegance of the homes, with condos

starting around $345,000, if you can find one. The city leaders of

Sanibel have taken great pains to hold back big developers and their

ilk. It doesn’t hurt that the various habitat sites restrict

development naturally.

We stumbled upon a great place for coffee -- actually the only one

Californians might recognize as such: The Bean has pricey coffee but

great-quality baked goods and sandwiches. It hails locals and

tourists alike. As we sat outside on the steps dressed minimally -- a

local lady said, “You must be tourists, we think it’s still too

cold!” -- only the two guys from Minnesota seated next to us seemed

to take any offense to her comments. After that, we made The Bean a

daily stop on our Sanibel travels.

We got a recommendation for a moderately priced place for seafood

by one of the shop owners. So that night, we found our way to the

Lazy Flamingo II on Periwinkle Way -- a rustic bar/restaurant that

offered up some of best fresh fish dishes and steamed shrimp we have

ever tasted. They also offered up a good selection of beers.

By day 3, we had frequented most of the shops on the island and

felt fairly comfortable finding our way to Bowman’s Beach -- a

wonderful isolated part of Sanibel that draws tourists and locals and

is part of a nature reserve. The selection of shells, sea life,

bleached white sand and birds are impressive. It reminded us of what

California looked like in the late 1950s and early 1960s. The unusual

part of this story was that even in remote areas of the island,

Bowman’s requires a $2 per hour parking charge. We had to drive

several miles to find correct change before we could return. Bowman’s

Beach is definitely a must-see for its sheer natural beauty. The way

passed Bowman’s Beach led us to Captiva Island.

Captiva Island is much like Carmel -- an elegant array of hidden

gorgeous homes, with vegetation-overgrown entry roads, unique mailbox

identifications and the home to South Seas Resort -- a timeshare of

humongous proportions. The tiny village on Captiva offers a limited

fare of outside dining restaurants -- a small liquor store and a

general feeling of family. We found out too late that we could take a

tour of the private “South Seas Resort” had we stopped at the real

estate office when we first arrived over the Causeway Bridge to

Sanibel on Periwinkle Way.

South Seas Resort is the largest timeshare property in the United

States -- with trams that run every few minutes. Because our papers

were not in order -- we demurred to the very elegant shopping center

across from the entry and enjoyed some homemade ice cream and coffee.

The people that worked there were great and seemed very kind -- even

to tourists.

The trip back from the tip of Captiva to Sanibel got us back to

our hotel just before sunset -- so we were off to get a steak at the

Island Cow, an unpretentious but lovely restaurant on Periwinkle, a

mile or two from our hotel. The food was great and the service was

terrific. Oddly, we wound up having seafood -- grouper is an island

favorite, but we went for the red snapper and it was absolutely

delicious. We saved our steak desire for another night.

The next day, we marched off early in the morning to Fort Myers

and Fort Myers Beach. From Sanibel you can see a long line of hotels

on the skyline, and so we headed off and over the Causeway bridge to

Fort Myers Beach. Fort Myers Beach was amazing, sort of a bad Santa

Cruz with $2 per half-hour parking meters. The beach itself was very

impressive: Brilliant white soft sand that doesn’t stick to your

body. This was the way Big Beach in Corona Del Mar used to look back

in the 1960s.

A couple hours of light tropical breezes and sun were all our

pocketbook for the parking meters could take and we headed back to

Sanibel, happy to have returned to our adopted island home. The homes

of Thomas Edison and his neighbor, Henry Ford, are located just off

I-75 in Fort Myers, but were too inconvenient for us to get to on our

limited time schedule. If we return to Sanibel, we certainly will go

the extra mile to see those sites.

Back at our hotel, we ran into a businessman and his wife, who had

spent the day at the nature habitat and showed us some pictures of

various alligators he had close encounters with. We asked

particularly about one photo, which he said was a croc that was about

15 feet long. We asked how close he was when he took the picture. He

said: “About 6 feet away!” We explained that alligators can leap and

attack within the length of their own bodies -- meaning that you

don’t want to get closer than 15 feet for that big guy with the nasty

alligator grin.

We then asked if he was with a guide when he took the pictures,

and he said, “Oh no, you just walk around wherever you want to go!”

The next day, he thanked us for our “information about alligators”

after he had checked it out with both locals and the people at the

“Ding” Darling Nature Park.

Our final night on Sanibel found us at the Timbers Restaurant,

across from the Sanibel Island Post Office -- tasting the most

delicious filet mignon we had ever had -- along with the hot homemade

bread and a great German beer. The service was terrific and we found

ourselves seated next to a German family that seemed to know the

territory. On the way back to the hotel, we made a quick stop at the

Jerry’s of Sanibel, an upscale Gelson’s equivalent, with talking

parrots that greeted us, “Hello!”

Jerry’s offered a great selection of both domestic and

international products you can’t find in California. We cruised the

shopping mall adjacent and made our last-minute tourist purchases.

Our last day in Sanibel left us with a feeling of sorrow. It had

been a wonderful adventure, and we had the feeling that there was

much more to see and enjoy.

* RON AND ANNA WINSHIP are residents of Newport Beach.