City of Palms

Fort Myers calls itself the "The City of Palms". It is true. It seems like you can never get more than ten feet away from one. The marina is on the riverfront in the downtown historic district. A lot of money has been spent on brick sidewalks, brick streets, old-style street lights, building facades, and of course, more palm trees. It is about 90% done and is a beautiful downtown.
Downtown Ft. Myers:


The marina is full of trawlers trying to cover their insurance requirements by moving north out of the main hurricane zone. Watching them dock is not nearly as much fun as watching sailboats dock. With two engines and a bow thruster they can turn 360's in their own length. A beautiful North Harbor N37 pulled in next to us tonight and had some trouble docking. They were embarrassed, but we assured them that we had done worse more than once. The marina dock hand had to jump aboard several times to fix the lines and lost his VHF radio overboard. When it surfaced De Anne and I kept an eye on it until he got the marina boat to fish it out.

And speaking of fishing... Our first full day here I pumped out our holding tank. We have been in a couple marinas that claimed to have dockside pumpout. This is the first that has it working. I opened the box, leaving the lid up where the instructions were printed, took out the hose, connected both ends, and turned it on (waiting for the punch line?.... hang on!). It worked great! I turned it off, dipped the hose in the water and back on to rinse it out, shut everything off, when a gust of wind caught the open lid of the empty hose storage box and tipped it into the water. I watched horrified for a few seconds as it sank out of sight. I reported it at the office and they sent a dockhand out to stare into the water. I got out a couple boat hooks and we both laid on the concrete dock fishing for the box. After a few minutes I snagged the lid and we were able to rescue it. No CPR required.

We have doubled our dock lines (a marina requirement) and put up the sun shade (dorky looking). It has been in the ninetys; however, on the waterfront, in the shade, with the breezes coming up river, we have not suffered yet. First time I break a real sweat I will take a bus to Walmart for a hundred dollar air conditioner, mount it in the main hatch, and tarp it over. The dorky sunshade will hide the dorky air conditioner.

Ft. Myers City marina: