Welcome to a tropical island getaway on Southwest Florida's Gulf. We invite you to enjoy an atmosphere that's a little quieter, a little less hurried and a lot less like the rest of the world. A place of exotic tropical wildlife, pristine white sand beaches and hundreds of uninhabited islands. The Beaches of Fort Myers and Sanibel: Sanibel & Captiva Islands, Fort Myers Beach, Fort Myers, Bonita Springs & Estero, Cape Coral, Pine Island, Boca Grande & Outer Islands, North Fort Myers and Lehigh Acres.
It’s hard to imagine Fort Myers Beach as a remote stretch of green edged with white, soft sand and accessible only by boat. However, that's just what it was until the first “Little Bridge" was constructed to bring tourists and locals alike to the seven-mile
Estero Island through Bunche Beach on the mainland. By the late 1920s, a new bridge (actually a second-hand one from the East coast of Florida) was installed near the current San Carlos Bridge.
Little by little, Estero Island’s attractive features, including miles and miles of white, sandy beaches, have captured the imaginations of visitors from near and far. This beach community draws thousands of visitors from Germany, France and the United Kingdom each year.
Boating, fishing and spectacular Lovers Key State Park make this island a real recreational playground.
Add to that a great number of family-friendly resorts, quaint cottages, Old Florida charm, restaurants serving fresh seafood from the Gulf of Mexico and an annual Shrimp Festival, and it’s a beach vacation paradise.
Nightlife gleams along the northern tip of the island around shopping-and-dining destination Times Square, and sunset watching is a favored pastime.
Estero Bay is home to the Atlantic bottlenose dolphin, a type of small, toothed whale that inhabits warm, salt and brackish waters. Dolphins belong to the order Cetacea, a grouping that includes the large baleen whales as well as their smaller cousins, the porpoises. The dolphins in the bay are coastal bottlenose dolphins. They ply the waters of the bay itself and the nearshore coastal waters. Further out in the Gulf, you might encounter the larger bottlenose dolphins that represent a distinct population seldom if ever seen near the coastline.
These coastal dolphins are an average of nine feet long and weigh in at approximately 500 pounds. They have distinct home ranges: areas of water in which they spend most of their time. Consequently, the individuals you see in the bay live here year-round.
Manatees reach an average size of about 10 feet and 1200 pounds. Their distant relationship to elephants can be seen in their grayish-brown skin and the toenails visible on the edges of their flippers.
Like all mammals, manatees have lungs and must surface to breathe, something they do every 5 minutes or so when active. While resting, manatees can hold their breath for up to 20 minutes.
Although they are solitary creatures by nature, it is possible to see groups of manatees swimming or feeding together. These groups are typically small, numbering 4 or 5. Larger groups of a dozen or more are sometimes spotted.
During the winter, most of the Bay's manatees migrate to warmer waters, making their way to the Fort Myers Power Plant or up to the warm water springs of Crystal River. Some of the larger males have enough natural insulation to withstand the cold winter temperatures, however, and remain in Estero Bay year-round. |
