Ft. Myers area

Can you tell me what marker to turn at, and what direction to head, to get to South Seas?
Also, how is the food at Barnacle Phil's in Safety Harbor?
We are mapping out all the good eating places. Eating is a priority for us. [8D]
We are also trying to plan out our stops. We have decided to have one night on the hook and the other two at marina's, if possible.
Cabbage Key is a must, the other we have not decided on yet.
We will be getting to Ft. Myers airport around 1:00 PM. By the time we get to the houseboat and have our 3 hour "introduction" to house boating and safety course, it will probably be close to dark. We are thinking about anchoring at a place called Shell Point(about a 2 hour trip), if it is a good place to anchor out. We don't really want to stay in town, at the marina unless we have to.
The home marina is called Centennial Harbour Marina, does anyone know if it has a good place to eat and is it a good place to stay?
 
If it is just adults, I like Tween Waters better. When we take the teenagers, South Seas works better for us because there is more to do there. For a price, they have a nice game room that the kids like.
 
Centenial is in downtown Ft Myers. Plenty of places to eat, plenty of bars and all within walking distances. I would rather get out and enjoy the water/boat. Its not getting dark here until 7:40 or so. However if you have to get to a store and buy some groceries you may be pushing it. Southseas is too pricey/fancy for me, I am not sure if they have mooring balls. Tween is more laid back. Nice restaurant on grounds beach is across the street. I would not moor there but dock it.
 
South Seas is just inside Red Fish Pass, if you get lost just ask anyone on channel 16, everyone knows where they are. Enjoy your trip, its a great area you are going to, one of my favorites.
 
Well, if I did this right you can click the link, then click on "full size" so that you can actually read it.

Big picture chart. Sorry that the labels aren't the best but I am not that good with images...

http://s347.photobucket.com/albums/p475/wastinaweigh/Chart JPEGS/?action=view&current=Sanibel.jpg

Here is the chart section showing the entrance to Tween Waters that was posted above. If you continue to follow the private channel you will see marker 20. That is about where the hotel is.

Just to the north of Redfish Pass is North Captiva that is mentioned in this thread. As noted above, it is a nice beach area.

http://s347.photobucket.com/albums/...rt JPEGS/?action=view&current=TweenWaters.jpg

This last one is farther north and is of the northern end of Cayo Costa. On the west side (left looking at the image) is a beach side area with good depths. You can anchor right off the beach and step off into 4 1/2 foot water.

On the east side is Pelican Bay which also was mentioned above.

http://s347.photobucket.com/albums/p475/wastinaweigh/Chart JPEGS/?action=view&current=CayoCosta.jpg
 
We are going to give the houseboat company a grocery list so we don't have to go shopping.
I found the Tween Waters, just couldn't find the South Seas.
We want to spend the night out of the city if possible, but don't know when we will be
able to leave the marina and how far we can go before it gets dark.
We figured that night 2 will be spent on Cabbage Key. Not sure where we will spend nights 1 and 3 yet.
We will make more plans as we get information.
We also are not planning on taking the houseboat out in the gulf. We would rather stay in the
more protected waters where the houseboat can handle it.
 
Cabbage Key may be ok for a night, but you may get bored after two. You can go up the water tower and hike the paths in about an hour. You would have passed Tween Waters & South Seas to get there. Believe if or not many stay on the east side of North Captiva. Just beach on the East Side near Charlie Pass (no longer a pass). It is skinny, but a house boat can get in there. Also look up Useppa.
 
I found the Useppa place on the chart. Right by the other place we are staying...
I will show it to my wife also...
We are not planning on staying at any one place for more than one night at a time.
We want to see all we can in 3 days and eat all the good stuff we can find.
We will probably go eat somewhere and sleep somewhere else, except at night.
We will be looking at as much of the scenery as possible.
 
We will be hitting the water tomorrow afternoon.
We will post pictures when we get back from the trip.
Hope the weather is as good down there as it is up here.
 
I just got off the phone with a friend that is in Naples, the weather is great.
Beautiful day here as well. It is supposed to be pretty through the weekend.

Ken
 
The weather was great.
The food was great.
The beer was great.
The people were great.
The boat did good, except for a few minor things and one major thing.
The trip was overall was good.

We stayed at Ft. Myers City Marina the first night, free. We ate a couple blocks up the road, fried shrimp and grilled Mahi po-boy. There are a lot of boats from the upper East Coast and the Great Lakes in that marina. I drank a few Landshark beers with the folks over there. The water here is clear but dark in the river. The first day we went up river to the RR bridge and back. Over there the train bridges stay open to boats and only close when train traffic comes. That is different from here. We have to call the train bridge to open and then wait forever for them to get up off their rb2@gr5t$$ and go open it.

The next day we went down river to the ICW in Pine Island Sound and headed to Cabbage Key. This is a geat place. No roads or bridges, you can only get to it by boat. Docking for the night was $81 and we shared a cheese burger, 2 beers and a Bloody Mary, $27. Fantastic Grouper and Fillet Mignon that night was around $80. The place is wonderful. Everyone there signs a dollar bill and tapes it to the roof and walls. They think they have about $70K in one dollar bills on the walls at any time. The ones that fall off get put in a 5 gallon bucket behind the bar and go to charity when it gets full. We did the nature trail and water tower tour. The bar tender made some great drinks also.

The next day we putt putted down the ICW to Captiva Island and docked at a place called Jensens Marina, great dockmaster. We ate some ice cream and diet coke(to cancel out the fat and sugar from the ice cream) and walked to the beach on the gulf side. The winds were calm and the water was blue. The little town there was fantastic also.

Then we went farther down to a place called Ding Darling and anchored out. It is a Wildlife Reserve. This is where the generator shut down, bad impeller. We saw a lot of Osprey, Dolphin and a few Tarpon. We rowed into Tarpon Bay. On the way in and out, there is a shallow sand bar where we saw a lot of big moving shells with things living in them and horseshoe crabs.

We then moved into Tarpon Point Marina in Cape Coral. The cost was $47 for the night. Great place, most boats here were local. The marina manager was the Port Captain for the Cape Coral Power Squadron. He gave us a discount on the dock and fuel because we were also USPS and BoatUS members. He gave us his card and told us next time we go that way to let him know and the Power Squadron will run with us. My wife ran the boat the whole trip except for around the docks.

The next morning we came back to the Ft. Myers City Marina and cleaned up. This is where I found out that I missed one spot with the sun block. I never had a burnt belly button before.

The low points:
The forward a/c kept going down on low pressure every couple of hours. I checked the a/c and it was froze up.
There was no GPS on the boat. Nor was there a 12 vdc plug to run your own hand held on the flybridge. We used charts only.
The flybridge horn didn't work.
There was no vhf on the flybridge. We didn't want to run from downstairs. If we knew that, we could have brought a hand held.
The generator impeller crapped out after running 1 hour.
There was no AM/FM radio on the flybridge.
We should have traveled to Ft. Myers the day before so we can have more time on the water. Next time we are not going to travel on any boating days.
 
Overall, sounds like you had a great trip. My wife and kids love that leg of any trip we take down there because they get to explore all the islands and mangroves. We especially love that area during week days when we pretty much have the water to ourselves.

Best wishes-
 
Thurs. and Fri. had low boat traffic.
Sat. and Sun. had a lot of boat traffic.
As soon as I get all the pictures loaded online, I will post a few.
 
Would be interested in getting name of place you rented boat from and if you would recommend them?
Sounds like a winter vacation I might be interested in to check out the area.
 
This is great information! We are going to South Seas Resort on Captiva Island in February for a "business" meeting. Oh darn! We went last year as well, and look forward to another trip.
South Seas gave us golf carts, so we went to all the great restaurants on Captiva including The Green Flash, Mucky Duck, and The Bubble Room. The restaurant at South Seas was also great.

Last year we rented a pontoon boat for the day from Jensens Marina, and explored Cabage Key and Cayo Costa. Had the obligatory cheese burger at Cabbage Key Inn, and a number of beers at the bar - what fun! It took most of the day to get to Cayo Costa and back, but well worth it. We are looking for something else to do this year, perhaps pick a sand bar somewhere and swim off the back of the boat. Seems like there are lots of choices. Would there be something like that perhaps not marked on the charts?

It's quite skinny all around that area - as compared to what we are used to here in the Northeast. We did actually hit a sandbar - but no big deal. The place is wonderful!!!
 
quote:
Originally posted by SPIKE

It's quite skinny all around that area - as compared to what we are used to here in the Northeast. We did actually hit a sandbar - but no big deal. The place is wonderful!!!

Click to expand...

NOt an uncommon sight in the winter


Sounds like a nice trip Rduhon.
 
Picnic Island, Ding Darling and Pelican Bay, West of Cabbage Key are great for swimming and anchoring out, from what we saw.
Locals can probably give you more great ideas.

The name of the houseboat rental we used was Holiday Yacht Charters. We saw it on the Travel Chanel.

http://www.holidaycruisehouseboats.com/

The boats are between 2001 and 2002 year models. Ours had 2300 hours on the main engines. The carpet was not dirty, but it was
worn pretty good. The owner said he gets a lot of family renters. We emailed the owner with a grocery list and he got them for us
and put them on the boat. All we had to do was show up. He also goes thru how to run everything on the boat and then takes it out
to see how well you can run it before turning you loose on it.

He also gives you an email with good places to go and what channel markers they are at, and how to get to them. This thread also
has some good local knowledge. He furnished a book with boat instructions, tides and weather for the days you will be out,
good placed to go and a chart of the area you will be in.

Docked at Cabbage Key:
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I would recommend them, we are going back next year, but bringing friends.
The boats are plain jane beadboard walls with carpet. Nothing fancy.
They have treatment systems, so no pumpout.
The boat holds 200 gal. of diesel and 200 gal. of water.
We used less than 1/8 of a tank of fuel. We did not run out of water.
We had to use the hold and treat system one time. I think it held 11 gallons. It says when to treat and pump. Just one button to push.
The t.v. has just rabbit ears, we only watched the evening and morning news to check weather and news.
Full sized fridge, big double sink, plenty of hot water, 4 burner elect. stove with oven.
Plenty of room in the main bedroom, main head had full shower, galley and salon/pilot house. The forward head and cave room with
2 double beds is crowded.
The forward head is an all in one shower/head type. Plenty of drawers and closet space.

In Cabbage Key main building:
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Is Pelican Bay inside of Ding Darling? Couldn't find it on the chart. Looks like there is a nice sand spit just west of Cabbage Key.

Ray - I'll try to find your dollar.
 
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