Bikes, Birds and Beaches

With Christmas vacation over, and having been three weeks out of Lilypad, it was time to get back to our real vacation. Living in an actual house is nice, but the view never changes and one can get a bit lazy. We hardly had to leave the house so there we were still in our pajamas at 10 am while in the motorhome we would have been dressed and had a long walk before breakfast.  Soon after the new year, we left Fort Pierce and headed west to explore other parts of Florida, sad to leave Mary Rice, but happy to be on the road again.

Off to view manatees and boats at the Orton Locks

Liz has been biking for several years, but it’s been a long time since we rode bicycles together (ohmygosh that was 20 years ago when we lived in Alaska). Now that we are in a warm climate where the land is flat, and all the bikes come with fat tires and are made so that one can put one’s feet on the ground while sitting on the seat and hands on the handlebars without bending over, Janna decided it was time for her to get a new bicycle. After more than a little searching, and almost in time for Christmas, we found a bike she loves at a nice bike shop in Vero Beach. Since then we’ve biked almost daily and the wobbly legs are getting stronger.

Invasive Plant Poster from Sanibel

We were delighted to discover excellent bike paths along every major road on beautiful Sanibel Island where there are many bikers over 70, and no one wears spandex or cleats (or helmets, for that matter.) Besides the wonderful bike paths Sanibel Island is remarkable in the amount of land local citizens have been able to preserve as natural habitat. A major hurricane in 1926 submerged the island under eight feet of sea water thereby erasing a thriving agricultural industry. Only the native mangrove and some citrus crops survived. Now the economy is tourist-based and people come from all over the world for the birding and shelling. The “Ding” Darling National Wildlife Refuge takes up over half of the island and all manner of animals, plants and cultural resources are protected there. The Wildlife Drive is four miles through the Refuge and we drove through on the tram and again at dusk in Lilypad, joining the reverent little groups of birders gathered around spotting scopes and peering at the roosting Roseate Spoonbills, American Pelicans and other wonderful waders and shorebirds. Throughout the island active conservation and environmental groups are vigilant about invasive plants and animals and all new landscaping must conform to stringent directives about the use of exotics and non-native species. The result is an island with lots of native plants, many birds and other wildlife, and no freeways or box stores or high rise buildings. 

Liz and the kids with parrots at Periwinkle Park

Also there are parrots all over the place on Sanibel. Jerry’s, the upscale grocery store has them, as well as our campground. Liz went twice to watch Libby the Parrot Lady introduce the public to the dozen or so parrots that live at the Park. The parrots happily perch on strange shoulders and nibble on earrings and spectacles as Libby describes their native lands and domestic habits. Their cages are all lined up along the main thoroughfare of the campground and they are constantly commenting on the human parade passing by with greetings in both parrot and English.

Our initial attempt at identification

This campground, Periwinkle Park, was about a half mile from the beach and a little further to the lighthouse. We enjoyed bike expeditions in both directions for the purpose of exploring and gathering shells. For collecting, Liz utilized a modified shore bird approach, walking ankle deep in the oncoming waves, peering through foam, then pouncing on rolling gastropods. Janna, who suffered early from the bending of the “Sanibel Stoop,” preferred to station herself atop gathered shell hash and pick out multicolored bivalve shells.This activity was fostered by a visit to the most excellent Bailey-Mathews Shell Museum where we learned there was much more than we thought to the business of shells. Creatures bearing shells have inhabited the earth for millions of years. Shells are mainly classified into gastropods or bivalves and there are thousands of kinds of each. We saw many amazing things such as “decorator shells” – shells that attached other shells to themselves in all sorts of designs. We saw tiny shells and enormous shells, common shells and rare shells, and learned a great deal about the animals that once inhabited them. When we arrived on Sanibel, we were surprised to learn that it’s perfectly ok to collect as many shells as you want (but you must put it back if there is a living creature inside it.) Then we learned that Sanibel Island is actually made of shells; the streets are not the gravel that we know, but “shell gravel.” The volume of shells is beyond comprehension. We hope to return one day to this island paradise. Meanwhile we now have a little shell collection right here in Lilypad.