(Originally posted to the How Not To Sail Patreon feed. For early access and exclusive content, join the crew!)
It’s been about a decade since The Admiral and I were last at Sanibel. Slips have been hard to come by because it’s such a great place…and for a while, they only had about 2 slips with sufficient draft for our sailboat. (I think they may have dredged to free up some more slips…but I’m not sure about that.)
Now I’m lucky enough to visit again, this time with our friend Jay as crew.
Sanibel (including the marina) got absolutely hammered in Hurricane Ian, and they are just now getting back in the swing of things….but the place was just as awesome as I remembered.
Coming into the marina, it feels like you could reach out and touch the condos on either side of the entrance…and it seems impossibly shallow.
…but then you’re tucked in right next to Gramma Dot’s restaurant.
I enjoyed maneuvering so much, I tried docking three times. (Actually, we had to re-jigger a couple of times to reach a 30A power pedestal with our 50-foot cord from the cockpit.)
With our 5’2″ draft and a full moon, we did ground in the soft mud overnight…but no big deal.
The food at Gramma Dot’s was excellent, as was the breakfast up the road at Lighthouse Cafe. The new location of Lighthouse Cafe is a little less walkable from the marina than the old one (as best I recall), but the same cool pictures of lighthouses adorn the walls…and I did not miss my opportunity to purchase a jar of their excellent homemade strawberry preserves for the first time in ten years.
We didn’t get to walk south to the lighthouse or look for shells on the beach (Sanibel is great for both)…
Due to the forecast (and wanting to be snug in a marina when a strong norther comes in), we’re aiming directly toward the Dry Tortugas next, instead of our original plan to start with Key West/Stock Island.
What could possibly go wrong?
