Waking up before the sun is easy to do when you have a State Parking goal to accomplish! As the time dwindled down on my State Parking year I found myself doing it more and more because the parks were further away and most of them required sometime of watercraft to get to them. That was the case for Cayo Costa State Park located near Captiva Island, which is about four and a half hours from home.
I knew this excursion needed to be preplanned so I booked the ferry ahead of time through Captiva Cruises, packed up the car with all of my beach day goodies and headed south. I got to Sanibel Island, paid the $6 toll and then made the turn over to Captiva Island. I was not sure how long it would take or the traffic situation so I arrived about an hour and a half early. I checked in and then took a little walk down the street to take a look to the beach.
When I came back, I spotted a bunch of people walking to the dock so I followed along, thinking we were just boarding a little early. I showed my ticket and sat right by the entrance. I began to look at the passengers and then the crew and noticed that everyone on board was Spanish, except me. I did not hear one word of English and each person aboard was looking at me as if I didn’t belong. I must have showed my concern all over my face because a member of the crew came over to me ask me a question in Spanish. I expressed to him that I could not understand what he was saying and then he proceeded to tell me, in English, that I was on a chartered boat for a private party. Hahaha! What? Off I went back down to the dock and one one boat to the right. I do some silly things at times.
The ferry ride to the island was about 20 minutes and the weather was perfect. We got to see a few dolphins, which made many people happy, but I was more excited about being on the island. As we docked I grabbed my chair and cooler and I went to seek out the perfect spot. The wind was very strong and really helped to keep the heat down but it did put a small damper on my exploration. I put my bags on my chair to keep it down and went on my way. There were a ton of shells and lots of other sea items all around me, washed up on the shore. I watched as people swam in the ocean and combed the shore for the perfect shells to take back with them as souvenirs. I only wanted to find the perfect sand dollar and as luck would have it, I did!
A few hours later I was back on the ferry and then heading to my car. It really was a perfect day. I honestly could not have asked for a better way to spend my morning.
Before you visit, make sure you check out the parks website for all of the up-to-date park information: https://www.floridastateparks.org/CayoCosta
