These pics are from Cape Ramano, our fav long time chill spot ...


nearly pristine, it's accessible only by boat



as we recently discovered, a tour pontoon boat now brings some 30 people

out every 2 hours (for a fee), for season only, we would guess.

On this day, we were quite surpised to see this impressive vessel pulled up to the beach (it's rather shallow as close up as this one is)

Who can blame them for coming here? it's a wonderous spot!


* From what I've heard, about a dozen vacation homes were built on the Cape

in the late 60's, early 70's. Storms quickly eroded the beach and thus, their

foundations, which apparently weren't deep enough)

* This is where Hurr. Wilma first hit landfall in Fla (2005). She pretty much

demolished the remaining half dozen houses altogether, with the except of

the "scrubbing bubbles" house.

.

* In doing a quick serach on Cape Romano (with various alt descriptions),

and the closest references to "development" I could find was a time line indicating

that it was part of a 1969 land purchase by the Collier family (founders of Collier

County), whothen turned it over to the state for protection.

* This same timeline (of Rookery Bay history) indicates that in 1976, the

"Deltona Corporation" lost a three year battle for Permitting, which would have

destroyed 3,200 acres of Marco wetlands.

I haven't posted in forever, as i was recently reminded ("so last year!" lol). thought i'd re-start with recent pics taken in our yard ... and a few of its welcome (mostly) visitors:

garden path ... birds fern nest blooms (they smell delicious!)

the bear (and what he did to our new above ground pool) ....

Pileated Woodpeckers (if you look closely, there's a pair of pileated woodpeckers in the first pic.). They're prox 15" long and are one of the largest woodpeckers found in North America.

a hawk ... a cardinal that got trapped on the back porch for a short time

a brazen little bunny (puppies and i were on the deck, yet
he sat quietly munching, in plain sight, right below us)

and last, but not least, a really cool bug!

Camping off Marco

June 2006. We took the girls for thier first camping-by-boat trip to Cape Ramano, one of our favorite places. It's off of Marco Island, with an inland waterway on the back-side, gulf front-side. It's less frequented, peaceful, beautiful ...