Ft Myers to The Everglades

FLORIDA.  FT MYERS to THE EVERGLADES

Enroute to the Everglades we stopped in beautiful Naples, not far south of Fort Myers. Naples is in southwest Florida between Miami to the East and Fort Myers to the North. It is known for its high-end shopping, sophisticated dining, and the outdoors. Fifth, South and Third street are the 3 main high end shopping streets in the historic downtown area, with numerous art galleries, chic clothing boutiques, and home decor shops.

The city is mostly known for its high-priced homes, white-sand beaches, and numerous golf courses. Naples is the self-titled “Golf Capital of the World”, as it has the second most holes per capita out of all communities. The city is also known for being appealing to the wealthier retirees, and a large percent of the population is made up of them.

The numerous canals and waterfront homes add a distinctive feature to the south portion of Naples and provide access to the Gulf of Mexico for many homeowners.

74 Hurricanes have passed the area around Naples, one at least every 2 years. The worse once were Hurricane Ian 2022, Irma 2017, and Wilma 2005, all Cat 5 hurricanes and responsible for over 1000 billion worth of damage and 366 deaths.

Hurricane Ian 2022 (Category 5) – Ian had a maximum wind strength 260 km/h, caused 149 deaths in the state of Florida and an estimated $989 million in damages to the city of Naples.

Hurricane Irma 2017 (Category 5)- Irma had a maximum wind strength of 290 km/h, caused 134 deaths and $50 billion in damage.

Hurricane Wilma 2005- Wilma had a maximum wind strength of 300 km/h and was responsible for 83 deaths and 22 billion dollars word of damage.

In the same area lies Marco Island with millions of acres of Federal and State Parks.

Part coastal resort, part fishing village, Marco Island is the largest and only developed island of Florida’s famed Ten Thousand Islands and offers a unique immersion into this unspoiled natural area with access to the Gulf of Mexico and island estuaries.

THE EVERGLADES

Having visited many swamp areas during our around the world trip, including the Amazone region in far Northern Brazil, French Guyana, Suriname, Guyana, the Okavango Delta in Botswana in Africa, the Mekong Delta in Cambodia and Laos, the Wetlands of Iberia National Park in Argentina, and the Pantanal in Western Brazil, we were looking forward to visiting the Everglades, also called the Amazon region of the USA.  I am not so sure if you could compare those 2.

The Everglades is the USA’s largest subtropical wilderness. Everglades National Park protects an unparalleled landscape that provides important habitat for numerous rare and endangered species like the Manatee, the American Crocodile, and the elusive Florida Panther. This subtropical saw grass marsh region is a river of grass up to 75kilometers wide but mostly just 30 centimetres deep. Water moves southward to the Mangrove swamps on the Gulf of Mexico, but on the east, it reaches as far as the outskirts of Miami. On the Westside it merges into the Big Cypress Swamp area.

Everglades National Park became a designated World Heritage site in 1979.

The Big Cypress Swamp is where we spent our first couple of nights. It is a large forest swamp covering over 6000 sq kilometres of land, around 100 kilometres south of Fort Myers. The area provides a habitat for endangered species like the Florida cougar.

The weather has not been really kind to us, but we cannot complain as we were aware of the 2 seasons in the area. Dry and Wet exactly.

We had rain and huge thunderstorms every day with temperatures around the 38 degrees C. So far, we had to deal with Tornado warnings, 2 Hurricanes (Beryl and Debbie) and it looks like Hurricane Ernesto is forming as we are ready to start exploring the Florida Keys.