She sells seashells by the seashore ~ Saturday

 

Saturday, March 15, 2025
Drive 1 hour for breakfast at Lighthouse Café à Sanibel Beach or drive up to Captiva Beach (20 min)?
10:30am tour at Sanibel Historical Museum & Village, 10am-4pm, $15
Lunch at Doc Ford’s Rum Bar & Grille
Bailey-Matthews National Shell Museum & Aquarium, 10am-5pm, $12
4-5pm return rental car (45-minute drive)
6pm Flight #4358 departs RSW à arrives 8:25pm Pittsburgh; buy dinner in airport

The most anticipated day of our vacation was Saturday, which I had decided to spend on Sanibel Island, being only 45 minutes from the Ft. Myers Airport. Several months ago, when a friend came to visit while I researching our itinerary, we went to the Arcade Comedy Theater, where my place prompt ("Sanibel Island seashell museum") was chosen. The troupe of talented improv artists performed a hilarious 20-30-minute sketch about a seashell museum as a family business in a rivalry with another museum in the Seychelles, and I won a pair of free tickets to another comedy shop.

Fast forward to today, which began with packing up at the AirBnB. On our way up the coast we passed preparations for a St. Patrick's Day parade. First stop: breakfast at the Lighthouse Cafe. Their "best breakfast in the world" and mimosas have a loyal following, but I wasn't in the mood for alcohol, and we liked the food a lot less than the decor and the owner's bonhomie.

Second stop: the Sanibel Historical Museum & Village, where we were the first visitors for the day. It's a collection of buildings with artifacts about the island that has been variably inhabited. The Calusa Indians who called it home seem to have fled from the Spanish to Cuba by 1736. Fishermen camped there sometimes. One hundred years later, the Americans attempted to sell plots of land and cultivate the island, but the 1875 census reported a population of 0. The lighthouse built in 1884 seems to have anchored a new farming community that thrived until the "Great Miami" hurricane flooded the fields with salt water in 1926. Then they turned to fishing.

The exhibit quality varied, with the older ones quite amateur and in disrepair, while they clearly got some money more recently (pandemic relief dollars?) to make more professional banners hung up in an outdoor pavilion. One building is set aside for Sanibel's Black residents, whose children were bussed to Ft. Myers to attend school for thirty years(!). But sure, "there was racial harmony on the island." 

The most recent hurricane damaged some of the buildings, including the one they usually use as a gift shop. The Bailey's General Store's gas pumps are inoperable but the rocking chairs still very much do work! Of course I was interested in the food and ration coupons. Check out the shell art below.

Third stop: lunch at Doc Ford's Rum Bar and Grille, a local chain that was apparently founded and named by the author of a series of detective novels featuring that character. I had never heard of it, and although there was an extensive cocktail menu, I still wasn't in the mood for alcohol, so we ate our lunch and then continued down the main drag to the piece de resistance.

Fourth stop was the National Shell Museum! And I must insist that you notice that it is the "shell" museum not the "seashell" museum. Because here they want to teach you about all kinds of shelled creatures (such as snails) and marine life. While waiting for the excellent explanatory video to start, we enjoyed an exhibit on the use of shells in fashion, although it looks like some poor intern didn't understand that pixels don't scale up, so some of the professionally produced images were unfortunately not in focus.

Can you find Dory and Nemo?

Seahorses!

The museum has only recently re-opened after the destruction of Hurricane Ian 3 years ago, and its exhibits have not entirely been re-built. But for a small museum, it is mighty, and who doesn't enjoy a wet petting zoo or recreating a silly fish-face photo from their honeymoon (that's me at the jump).

So long, Sanibel Island!

If you missed the beginning of this series, start here.