Fort Myers & Vicinity

Friday, November 4 - Wednesday, November 16, 2016

We've enjoyed our 2-week stay in Fort Myers.  Engine parts were ordered and installed and we had plenty of time to explore downtown Fort Myers from our slip at the municipal marina.

Lots of liveaboards in this marina; we have met some interesting people and shared our dock with a variety of unusual boats.  This former passenger ferry has been renovated as an efficiency apartment and is for sale.

Fellow cruisers arrived in this Great Harbour trawler.

This houseboat is also a hair salon!  Carolyn immediately booked an appointment.  Getting haircuts while cruising is hit or miss, so finding a salon just steps from our boat was a plus.

Fort Myers has revitalized their waterfront with lovely parks and water features. This retention pond filters runoff from downtown streets before it is released into the adjacent river.

Known as the City of Palms, this Fort Myers city park showcases specimen palms from all over the world.

The downtown area is thriving with lots of cute shops and restaurants.  We walked over for Art Walk one evening and enjoyed several meals on street-side patios. 

For a change of pace, we drove to Sanibel Island for lunch and sightseeing.  The lighthouse on the eastern end of the island dates to 1884.

The beach on Sanibel was lovely but quite busy on this warm weekend day.









Next, we crossed the Caloosahatchee River, through Cape Coral to Matlacha and Pine Island.  Matlacha was a funky waterfront town with lots of colorful shops and restaurants.  We stopped at this nature preserve on Pine Island to stretch our legs.





Time for a cool drink and some R&R at this lovely bed and breakfast, The Tarpon Lodge.  This area is known for good bay fishing.

After one week at the city marina, we had to move to make room for an upcoming boat show.  We are now 1 mile down river at the Marina at Edison Ford. 





We were surprised to discover that Fort Myers was the winter home of Thomas Edison and Henry Ford, who were good friends. Our new marina is next door to the Edison and Ford winter estates, which are open for tours.  This is the view of the adjoining estates from our slip.








Thomas Edison and his wife, Mina, bought the property and built their home in 1886.  The extensive grounds were landscaped with an astonishing variety of plants, mostly tropicals, including these Royal palms.








Edison designed unique light fixtures for his entire estate, which were powered by on-site generators, also his design.














In addition to Mina's ornamental gardens, Edison planted stands of many bamboo varieties.  He used bamboo strands as filaments in some early light bulb designs.

This bougainvillea was planted by Mina in about 1927.  Looks like it hasn't been pruned in a while!














Edison maintained this separate study for his work while in Florida. 

Henry Ford worked as an engineer at Thomas Edison's factory prior to establishing the Ford Motor Company.  After starting Ford, Edison befriended the founder and the two became good friends and collaborators on many projects.  Ford purchased this house next door to Edison in 1916.





Ford's home was called "The Mangoes" due to the row of mango trees lining the street.  The gardens also include a variety of tropical fruit and spice trees, such as cinnamon and allspice.








Several vintage Ford vehicles were on display, including this early truck.  Edison, Ford and Harvey Firestone collaborated on an attempt to find a domestic source of natural rubber for  tires.

Edison had a large plant processing lab at his winter estate where he could experiment with various plant sources, many grown in his gardens.  He tested many varieties of ficus and banyon, in addition to shrubs, vines and perennials.  Surprisingly the plant with the highest latex rubber content was goldenrod.

We had an unexpected visit from Kemah neighbors, Chip and Patty Claiborne, who were boat shopping in town.  What a treat to see familiar faces and catch up on news from home!




We leave on the 17th, heading east on the Okeechobee Waterway to the east coast of Florida.