I was Marc and Eliana’s last night for dinner and was lamenting to Eliana that we needed to have spent more time at Cayo Costa State Park while we were there over Christmas weekend. It was truly a beautiful and magical little place.

To get there you have to drive north of Cape Coral to Pine Island and nearly to the tip of that island and then catch a ferry over. We thought there wouldn’t be too many people two days after Christmas, but the ferry was packed. The downside is that the ride costs, I think $50 a person, to get over there unless you have your own boat. We figured that the $50 a person wasn’t too bad considering that we didn’t know when we’d ever get back over there. Plus, once you are there, you could stay almost as long as you wanted to camp. If you figure that into the cost, it isn’t nearly that bad. The ride over is an hour long, though the two islands are not that far apart from each other. The problem is that the area has very narrow channels and you can’t speed through in a ferry boat!

This will be the first post of probably three of this little excursion. Too many great photos to share and I don’t want to overload it all at one time.

Oh, I will also preface to say this is an excellent shelling beach.

I want to go back.