Let's Just Go Somewhere: Cayo Costa

Last week when I was looking at the map, I noticed a state park not far from Pine Island called Cayo Costa. that looked like an interesting place to visit. It is located on a barrier island and is accessible only by boat. Ken and Bonnie said they had always wanted to visit there also so we made reservations over the weekend to go out on Tuesday on the Tropic Star,

a boat that takes visitors back and forth to Cayo Costa from Bokeelia at the north end of Pine Island.

It was a full boat so we were glad we had made reservations. After getting everyone and everyone's beach gear loaded on the boat, we headed out to Cayo Costa.

It was a absolutely gorgeous day...perfect for both a boat ride and a day at the beach.

As we headed around the north end of Pine Island, we could see the vacant lot (in between the two houses)...

and the little house (front center) that we had seen for sale on our bike ride yesterday.

Although Cayo Costa is only seven miles from the boat dock, it took an hour to reach Cayo Costa. The boat was obviously not the fastest plus they have to navigate over various sand bars. We could see the bottom in many places. We also saw a few dolphins during the ride (but as usual, they were too fast for me to get a picture).

As soon as we arrived at the boat dock at Cayo Costa, they loaded all of us and our gear onto a tram and took us through the woods...

over to the western side of the island where the beach is located.

As soon as we set up the beach chairs and towels, we started walking along the beautiful beach.

Bonnie was looking for shells for her jewelry that she makes,

Ken was looking for shark's teeth to add to his collection,

and Chuck and I were just looking for.... whatever.

The beach was beautiful, and the water was clear but surprisingly cold.

As we walked further north on the beach, we could see the lighthouse on Gasparilla Island at Boca Grande.
There were a few people fishing along the beach. What were they catching? Baby sharks!

This was a baby bonnet shark.

After we got back to our beach towels, we sat down, ate our picnic lunch, and just rested a little while. Mmmmm. Nice.

After resting for a little while, we decided to take our beach gear back to the boat dock via the park tram and walk some of the hiking trails on the island. Ken had picked up a hiking trail map and one of the park volunteers gave us suggestions on which trails we could hike in the time we had left before we had to get back on the boat.

We started out by hiking up Cemetery Trail.

There were some ospreys nesting on top of the island's water tower.

After walking a short distance,

we very quickly came to the cemetery.

We continued hiking north hoping to follow the trail to the north end of the island around the top end of the island and then back down a trail on the eastern side of the island back to the boat dock. There were some beautiful little flowers...

...and these plants that had some type of plum-like fruit on them. The fruit itself was not supposed to be very good but it supposedly has a seed that tastes like an almond inside.

When we reached an intersection of Scrub Trail and Cemetery Trail, we made a wrong turn that took us to another beautiful section of beach.

Some other island visitors had ridden bikes and were enjoying this area of the island's coastline.

We double-backed to the intersection of the trails and headed due north on Cemetary Trail thinking we would still have time to walk the trails we were planning to. Once again, we dead-ended at another section of beautiful beach.

We were starting to run short on time now so we decided to just go back the way we came rather than continue on the other trails. We saw this armadillo in the woods.

He kept walking towards us and didn't see us until he got to the trail. When he did see us, he got spooked and ran off in the woods on the other side of the trail. We walked a fast pace back to the boat but made it back in plenty of time.