Cayo Costa sounds like a musical, whimsical place to go to get lost for a day or two or three or more. It really can be that place. You can't drive to it. It is an island. As the gull flies its not far from Ft Myers, Fl, and tourists doing tourist, but on the island it can be as far away as you like it to be.
This near-away island is nine miles of beautiful beaches. Surviving from hurricane Charley are pines, oak-palm hammocks, and mangrove swamps. Charley sucker punched this state park paradise with 145 mph winds in '04, but you can't keep beauty down when beauty is what is does best, so Cayo Costa remains a good getaway not faraway.
Lore and tale, some stretched to the outer reefs of imagination (not that there's anything wrong with that) tell the intrigue of the mythical (or not) pirate Gasparilla. Fact, or fiction says he built a fort on the island in the late 1700s and used it as a refuge after he plundered merchant ships sailing out in the Gulf waters. When his pirating days ended his fortune scattered up and down this coast around the waters of Charlotte Harbor. Wild pirates to beware of have given way to wild boars who roam freely. They can be as nasty and ornery as any pirate so watch out and don't irritate them. Are there snakes, alligators, bobcats, and raccoons, as tales are told? Yes to raccoons and probably to the others but The Captain and The Kid did not encounter any critters other than the racoons on this stopover.
We anchored behind the island in Pelican Bay. You come in from Charlotte Harbor through Pelican Pass. This can be tricky. The sand shifts, so while one time its a straight shot in; another time, like when we sailed in, you have to hug the shore. As we came in we were so close to one guy who was already grilling off his stern that I checked his fish as we went by and let him know it was time to flip his fillets.
Cayo Costa is a good place to escape. The Kid rowed around to bird watch. The trees were filled with up close varieties of all types including ospreys and egrets. This Captain stayed on board and watched daytime give way to sunset. I could not see the sun slip into the water, but watched as it changed the island. The sunset rays and colors scattered through the trees and across the sand and along the path on-shore from where I watched. Usually we see the sunset away from us, but not this night in this location. This day the sunset came ashore. Gaspar may have left his treasure buried and submerged, but the sun brought its treasure to put on display for all to be enriched by. I began to realize my foot was tapping to an unheard, but certainly an experienced, symphony of light orchestrated by day turning to night across a near-away place faraway where escape is encouraged.
Escape can come by getting away from what is common, but it also can come by way of what we at times take for granted when we view it from a new, or renewed perspective. There was no need to go to other places this evening. There was no place but this place to escape to.
The Captain and The Kid
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