Quirky Matlacha

10pm Friday 27 February











The Sun and Moon B and B in Matlacha is an adorable spot, undoubtedly the best located accommodation I have had so far. The wildlife around here is astonishing. But the road to Pine Island is very close and it's been busy since 0530 with boat trailers and motorbikes on the move.
I'm due to go on a boat trip today, but it would have tied me up for six hours and I really want some time to explore quirky Matlacha and nearby Pine Island. Curt, my extraordinarily hospitable host, suggests that I instead head out to the Randell Research Centre which documents the history of the area and then he'll take me out in his boat to get a really local slant on the area.
I miss the turning to Randell Research and find myself in Bokeelia, in the far north of the island. I have passed a load of tropical groves filled with palm trees and exotic fruit, so it feels absolutely right that my Sirius Satellite Radio provided by Mr. Hertz, has a Merengue Station called Caliente, Spanish for hot, playing away for that section of the journey. Somehow BBC World Service doesn't seem right at this moment!
Bokeelia is very laid back, loads of people fishing from a couple of piers and going out in boats. I ask for directions and head for Pineland, where I pass a lovely little wooden post office.
The rather uninspiringly-named Randell Research Centre turns out to be an absolute delight. In association with the Natural History Department of the University of Florida, the RRC interprets the remains of the settlement of Calusa Indians, dating back some 2000 years. There are vast 30 feet high 'middens', mainly of discarded shells, which give archaeologists a remarkable insight into the lifestyle of the Native Americans, two millennia ago. One interpretation is fascinating, suggesting that the chief would have his house on the highest mound, 'height suggesting power, authority and wealth'. I have never thought of it like that, but it is so true. These cultured people lived around these parts until 1821, when, like so many other native Americans and Cuban fishermen, they were made not welcome.
I ask Michael Wylde, the manager of the shop and the laboratory coordinator, why many American people seem to ignore the wealth of history prior to Columbus. The answer is fascinating. 'Schools in any part of the world don't generally teach about the bad things in their history. The enslavement of African Americans is well documented but people do not realise that 10,000 Florida Indians were sold at Charlestown before 1750.' Michael suggests that I read a book on the subject, 'Bury my heart at Wounded Knee' by Dee Brown.
I could have stayed at the Centre for Hours, I even saw a couple of pairs of nesting Ospreys, about which I am getting rather blasé now!
On my return to the Sun and Moon Inn, the irrepressible Curt has his boat all fired up and ready to go. He tells me all about the effects of Hurricane Charlie in 2004, whose eye was just 6 miles from Matlacha. The locals were of course all evacuated, but Curt describes the very scary effects of being in the eye of a storm, the peace, then all hell breaking loose. I's a sobering thought that, despite the natural beauty of a lot of Florida, nature has a way of saying who is boss.
We meet several shop owners, running their businesses in former fishermens' shacks, now brightly painted. Leoma Lovegrove lets me take pictures, despite signs telling me not. She says it's to stop people stealing her ideas, but I think tourists showing the pictures of her extraordinary collections to their friends would do her more good than harm. Curt introduces me to several colleagues in the local Chamber of Commerce, including B J Hickey, who runs the Great Licks Ice Cream Shop. Everybody has the same view. While the national economy is struggling, Matlacha has found a a little niche and is doing very nicely thank you.
Curt is keen to take me to Pampered Pets, who make his dogs' coats pink and purple. Well, it's America.
I take a much needed shower and report downstairs to meet Katie Meckley, from Lee County Convention and Vistor Bureau (www.fortmyers-sanibel.com). She's never met Curt face to face and is being shown a TV fishing programme where fur from the dogs is being used to catch the much-valued Snook from the river just yards away from the house.
Katie takes me to the Tarpon Lodge restaurant where we have the best meal I have had in Florida, after watching the most incredible sunset I have seen so far. The moon and a planet, dazzlingly bright above the setting sun. Astounding.
I have a very tasty starter of blackened, locally caught fish bites, a wonderful salad with crumbled blue cheese and an excellent filet mignon steak. I am surprised to discover red wine from Portland Oregon, Duck Pond by name. It is so nice I have to have another.
The setting is idyllic and while I understand that the area we are in is used for more casual dining during the day, it deserves rather better than cheap plastic picnic chairs and tables without even tablecloths in the evening. The place is much too classy for that.
Back at Curt's, Katie and I go with mine host to watch Snook at the boat dock. The Sun and Moon really is a magical place.

History, art, manatees, hot springs and baseball

Thursday 26 February

I have planned quite a few visits today during my drive south, so I am packed up nice and early and am on the road by 0930. I have carefully pre programmed the Hertz 'Never Get Lost', press the button and set off. I've planned to go to the Warm Mineral Springs first, and, depending on time available, will try and fit in a placed called Historic Spanish Point in the appropriately named Osprey.
So it's a huge surprise to me to be told by Mr. Hertz' GPS that I have arrived at Historic Spanish Point. Please blame the operator and not the technology!
The elderly volunteer at reception takes some persuading what to do with my Sarasota VIP Visitor card, but relents. It is only as I am sitting watching the introductory video, that I realise that she has confiscated my valuable card.
My pass safely retrieved, I head off into Spanish Point itself.
It's a gorgeous day, the place is delightfully peaceful and I have a thoroughly enjoyable walk for a couple of miles through the 30 acre site. Most folk seem to be using the courtesy golf carts to move about. There are historic buildings, carefully reconstructed evidence of people living in the area 4000 years ago and beautiful gardens. The utterly charming butterfly garden has been built with funds from the May family in memory of their grandmother Louine McCuaig, a former museum volunteer. I see enormous Monarch butterflies and several other species flitting about. The whole place is delightful.
I have noticed several artists at work. I have taken pictures of several, including local North Port artist, Ron Sanders. Later I meet another, Heather McCullough, who tells me that all the paintings will be on show at the Venice Art Gallery tomorrow evening.
I love the atmosphere and the tranquillity of Spanish Point (www.historicspanishpoint.org). It is utterly charming and I wish I could have stayed a lot longer.
But there's an opportunity to visit my first ever mineral spa at North Port. The publicity blurb claims it is the original fountain of youth sought by Ponce de Leon almost 500 years ago.
My Sarasota VIP card again goes down a storm. The lady reads it, makes a phone call, then offers me the standard AAA $2 discount on the $20 entrance fee. I point out the small print which says clearly, 'Complimentary admission for two', and manage to negotiate the entry, loan of a towel and a locker key. The changing facilities are badly in need of upgrading and I joke with my neighbour, a gentleman from Minnesota, that we will have all our ills repaired in the spring, only to catch some lethal disease from the accumulated grime on the floor. Not at all nice. He also discovers that his key will open my locker and several others.
The spa itself is an impressive 1.4 acres and is fed by a spring which delivers 9 million gallons a day of 87 degree warm water. The mineral content is said to be higher than that in Vichy, Aix les Bains and Baden Baden. Bizarrely it is full of Russian ladies with hats on and all sorts of other eastern European visitors. I do one circuit of the rather sulphurous smelling water, brush against a turtle or two, and decide to brave the changing rooms again before setting off for Fort Myers.
Beside the road are lots of classy looking housing developments with names like 'Heron's Glen' and 'Eagles Rise'. I make sure my car doors are locked when roadside signs announce that State Prisoners are working at the roadside.
I am shocked by the standard of driving on the Interstate. People are texting while hurtling along at 65 miles an hour, undertaking seems to be the norm, as is chatting on a mobile phone., I am astonished to discover later that all of this is perfectly legal.
It's spring training season for America's professional baseball players and, in late February and March, they are busy in Florida getting ready for the forthcoming season. I am helped to find a parking space right in front of the ground by three very friendly local policemen who each pass me to their colleague by radio. I rather doubt if the same courtesy would be extended in Britain to an American visiting a Premiership football ground!
The Boston Red Sox are based in Fort Myers and today they are playing the Pittsburgh Pirates. I am sitting right behind the action, in one of the best seats in the house, protected from stray balls by a very solid looking net. Two Sox fans, one a retired cop from the north end in Boston, where I have stayed, explain to me the intricacies of the action. At the end of the seventh inning, they join in enthusiastically with a fans' version of Neil Diamond's 'Sweet Caroline'. It's apparently what always happens at Fenway Park, their home ground, now sold out completely for the forthcoming season, as it has been for several years.
After the game, in roasting hot temperatures, I head for Matlacha (pronounced Matla shay), to check in to the Sun and Moon Inn. This turns out to be an absolutely lovely little bed and breakfast inn, right overlooking the water. There's a Fed Ex parcel full of goodies from Katie at the visitor centre. It feels like Christmas!
I'm not in the place for half an hour before Curt, the owner, comes to tell me about the 30 or 40 manatees that will be passing by on the outgoing tide. Incredible, I hadn't seen one till a couple of days ago and now there are dozens swimming past my bedroom. Shortly afterwards, there's another lovely sunset.
I'm delighted with how things are going. Florida is, at last, revealing some of her secrets.