3 WAYS
TO SUPPORT RECOVERY
1 Visit an animal sanctuary Stopping in at one of Sanibel’s many sanctuaries is a sustainable way to support the hurricane recovery. At CROW, travellers can attend an educational tour, purchase adorable soft toys from the gift shop or simply donate a few dollars.
2 Take a boat tour Getting on the water in Fort Myers is a serene experience – particularly if clients set out just before sunset. Captains know Fort Myers like the back of their hand and are happy to share stories from the area. Whether it’s a bring-your-own tiki cruise or a sail to see manatees, each trip is an organic and fun way to connect with local people.
3 Eat out, eat local Munching one’s way around the bay helps hurricane- impacted restaurants get back on their feet. Soak up the live music and shrimp at Nervous Nellie’s (try to get a seat on the harbourside decking), snack on Latin American street food at Backyard Social, or shop for fresh Florida bananas at Sanibel Farmers’ Market.
DESTINATIONS FLORIDA | THE US
ABOVE: Flamingos have set up colonies on Sanibel for the first time since the 1970s PICTURES: Shutterstock/HGU Foto; Brian Tietz
remarkably quick to recover from the hurricane: American flamingos have been spotted setting up colonies here for the first time since the 1970s. Facilities designed to house
Nervous Nellie’s
injured wildlife weren’t quite so lucky. At Sanibel’s Clinic for the Rehabilitation of Wildlife (CROW), my guide Ali Reece explains that only six of the centre’s 18 animal enclosures survived Ian. “Nobody expected how bad the hurricane would be – we weren’t able to move back on site until October 2023,” she says. However, rebuilding work has been swift. CROW acts as an animal hospital for trainee vets and offers tours from Monday to Friday, so visitors can learn more about Sanibel’s creatures. I watch through a clinic window as a batch of frightened marsh rabbits are brought in, the adorable critters swaddled in towels donated by local hotels and fed with out-of-date produce from Jerry’s, Sanibel’s mom-and-pop greengrocer. “They really stepped up – the other grocery store was knocked out by the hurricane,” says Reece.
travelweekly.co.uk As my eyes
adjust to the dark cavern, I see cowries, conches and scallops stacked in neat strata
Inland in Fort Myers city, the
story is a little different. Many of its colourful art deco shopping streets and traditional ‘Old Florida’ wooden mansions survived the hurricane’s wrath: crucially, the charming 19th-century winter homes of American entrepreneurs Henry Ford and Thomas Edison (including a laboratory the two constructed to extract rubber from local flora) were largely unscathed.
SHELL SHOCKED Another historic attraction to suffer minimal damage was Mound House, a 20th-century bayside home built atop a 2,000-year-
old shell mound. Constructed over the millennia by the Native American Calusa people, even the paths leading up to the mound make ingenious use of shell fragments rather than gravel. Lined with fruit-bearing bushes, these walkways descend to a mysterious metal door, behind which is the heart of the 13-foot mound. As my eyes adjust to the dark cavern, I see cowries, conches and scallops stacked in neat strata – layer upon layer of Fort Myers history. The walls look brittle, but they’ve held for thousands of years, remaining resilient – just like Fort Myers itself. TW
BOOK IT
Gold Medal offers seven nights’ B&B at the Pink Shell Beach Resort & Marina from £1,649 per person, based on two sharing a Deluxe Studio 1 King Bed Gulf Front room. The price includes flights to Tampa on September 9 and car hire.
goldmedal.co.uk
25 APRIL 2024 47
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